
Oass U '' 



BookJk^ 



OUTLINES OF HISTORY: 



ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS 



GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES AND MAPS 



EMBRACING 



PART L ANCIENT HISTORY. 
PART n. MODERN HISTORY. 



BY MARCIUS WILLSOISr, 

lUTHoa OF "ameripan history," "history of the united staths," etc. 



0ci]ool (Edition 



NEW YOEK: 
IVISON & nilNNEY, 178 FULTON STREET; 

(SUCCESSORS OF NEWMAN & IVISON, AND MARK H. NEWMAN <k CO.) 

CHICAGO: S. C. GRIGGS & CO., Ill LAKE STREET. 

BUFFALO: PHINNEY & CO., 188 MAIN STREET. 

auburn: j. c. jvison & co. Detroit: a, m'fauren. 

C^NOINNATI : MOORE, ANDERSON <t CO. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 

MARCIUS WILL SON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern Disirict of New York. 



VH^ 



STBiaTEOTYPKD BT PRTNTIID BY 

THOMAS B. SMITH, J. D. BEDFORD, 

216 William St., N. Y. 59 Ann Street. 



'^ ^^ 









PREFACE TO THE UNIVERSITY EDITION * 

The author of the following work submits it to the Public with a few 
remarks explanatory of its Plan, and of the endeavors of the writer to 
prepare a useful and interesting text-book on the subject of General 
History. 

In the important departments of Grecian and Roman History he has 
aimed to embody the results of the investigations of the best modern 
writers, especially Thirhvall and Grote in Grecian, and Niebuhr and 
Arnold in Koman History ; and in both Ancient and Modern History he 
has carefully examined disputed points of interest, with the hope of 
avoiding ah important antiquated errors. 

By endeavoring to keep the attention of the student fixed on the 
history of the most important nations — grouping around them, and treat- 
hig as of secondary importance, the history of others, — and by bringing 
out in bold relief the main subjects of history, to the exclusion of com- 
paratively unimportant collateral details, he has given greater fulness 
than Avould otherwise be possible to Grecian, Eoman, German, French, and 
English history, and preserved a considerable degree of unity in the nar- 
rative ; while the hnportance of rendering the whole as interesting to the 
student as possible, has been kept constantly in view. 

The numerous Notes throughout the work were not only thought 
necessary to the geographical elucidation of the narrative, by giving to 
events a distinct " local habitation," but they also supply much useful ex- 
planatory historical information, not easily attainable by the student, and 
which could not be introduced into the text without frequent digressions 
that would impair the unity of the subject. 

In addition to the Table of Contents, which contains a general analysis 
of the whole work, a somewhat minute analysis of each Chapter or Sec- 
tion, given at the beginning of each, is designed for the use of teachers 
and pupils, in place of questions, 

* In the « School Edition," Part III., containing " Outlines of the Philosophy of Histoiy," ia 
omitted. 



1^" niEFACE. 

The author has devoted less space to the History of the United States 
of America than is found in most similar works, for the reason that he 
has already published for the use of schools, a " History of the United 
States," and also a larger " American History ;" and, furthermore, that 
as the present work is designed as a text-book for American students, 
who have, or who should have previously studied the separate history of 
their own country, it is unnecessaiy, and, indeed, impossible, to-repeat the 
same matter here in detail ; and something more than so meagre an 
abridgment of our country's annals as a General History must nec- 
essarily be confined to, is universally demanded. 

The author is not ignorant that he will very probably be charged with 
presumption in heading Part HI. of the present work with the am- 
bitious title of " Philosophy of History," although he professes to give 
only its " Outlines ;" nor is he ignorant that a great critic has expressed 
the sentiment, tliat as the vast Chaos of Being is unfathomable by Human 
Experience, so the Philosophy of all History, could it be written, would 
require Infinite wisdom to understand it. But although the whole mean- 
ing of what has been recorded lies far beyond us, the fact should not 
deter us from a plausible explanation of what is known, if, haply, we may 
thereby load others to a more just appreciation of the true spirit — the 
Genius of History — and the great lessons, social, moral, and political, 
which it teaches. "With the explanatory remark that our brief and very 
imperfect sketches of the Philosophy of History were not designed to en- 
lighten the advanced historical scholar, but to lead the student beyond 
the narrow circle of facts, back to their causes, and onward to some of 
the important deductions which the greatest historians have drawn from 
them, we present these closing chapters as a brief compend of the history 
of Civilization, in which we have aimed to do justice to the cause of Re- 
ligion, Intelligence, and Virtue, and the cause of Democracy, — the great 
agents of regeneration and Human Progress; — and Ave commend this 
portion of our work to the candor of those Avho have the charity to ap- 
preciate our object, and the liberality to connect with it our disclaimer 
of any other merit than that of having laboriously gathered and analyzed 
the results of the researches of others, and reconstructed them with some 
degree of unity of plan, and for a good purpose, into these forms of our 
own. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAET I. 

ANCIENT HISTORY. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLY AGES OF THE \V"ORLD PRIOR TO THE COMMEN-CEMENT OK GRECIAN HISTORY. 
1. The Creatiou— Antediluvian History. —II. Egyptian History.— Ill Asiatic History. Page 11—20. 

CHAPTER II. 

FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY ; ENDING WITH THE 

CLOSE OF THE TROJAN WAR, 1183 B. C. 

I. Geography of Greece.— 11. Grecian Mythology.— HI. Earliest inhabitants of Greece.— IV. 
Foreign settlers in Greece.— V. The Ileilenes.— VI. The Heroic Age Page 20—43. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE UNCERTAIAN PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY ; FROM THE CLOSE OF THE TROJAN 
WAR TO THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA: 1183 TO 490 B. 0. 693 YEARS.# 

I, Thessalian conquest. — II. Boeotian conquest.— III. ^olian migration. — IV. Return of the 
HeraclidjB. — V. luslitutiojis of Lycurgus. — VI. First .Messenian War. — Vlf. ;>econd Messe- 
nian War.— VIII. Draco.— IX. Le;<islalion of Solon.— X. Expulsion of the Pisistratids.— 
XI. Ionic Revolt Page 43—5=1. 

CoTEMPORARY HisTORY. I. Phoenician History. — II. Jewish History. — III. Roman Historj*. — 
IV. Persiim History Page 5S— 73. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 
Section I.— From tuk Beginning of the First War vvitu Persia, to the Establish- 
ment OF Philip on the Turone ot Macedon : 490 to 300 b. c. — J30 years. 
I. First Persian War. — II. Second Persian War. — HI. Tliird Messenian AVar. — IV. First Pelo- 
ponnesian War. — V. Tiie Sicilian Expedition. — VI. Second Pelopumiesiau War. — VII. Third 

Peloponuesiau War. — VIII. Second Sacred War Page 73—92. 

Section II. — From the Establishment of Philip on the Throne of RIacedon, to the 

REDUCTION ok GrEECE TO A RoMAN PROVINCE : 30:) TO 140 B. C. — 214 YEARS. 

I. Philip of Macedon. — II. Alexander the Great — his conquests, and death. — III. Achanan 
League, and conquest of Greece by the Romans Page 92 — JH. 

CoTEMPORARY HISTORY. — 1. llistory of the Jews. — II. Grecian Colonies. — III. Magna Graecia. 
— IV. Cyrenaica Page 111—123. 



CHAPTER Y. 

ROMAN HISTORY, FROM THE FOUNDING OF ROME, 753 B. C, TO THE CONQUESTS 

OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE, 140 B. C. 607 YEARS. 

Section I. Early Italy: Rome under the Kings: ending 510 B. C— 243 years. 
I. Italy.— n. Founding of Rome.— III. War with the Sabines.— IV. Xuma.— V. Tulliis Hos- 
tilius.— VI. Aliens Martius.— VII. Tarquin the Elder.— VIII. Servius TuUius.—IX. Tarquin 

the Proud Page 123—134 

Section II. — The Roman Republic, from the Abolition of royalty, 510 B. C, to the 
Beginning of the Wars with Carthage, 263 B. C. — 247 years. 
I. Consuls.- II. Etruscan War.— 111. Office of Dictator.— IV. Plebeian Insurrection.— V. Tri- 
bunes of the People— VI. Volscian and ^5:quian wars.— VII. The Decemvirs.— Vllf. Office 
of Censors.— IX. War with Veil.- X. Gallic Invasion.— XI. Plebeian and Patrician con- 
tests.— XII. Office of Pras'or.-Xill. First Samnite War.— XIV. Second Samnile War.— XV^ 
Third Samnite War.— XVI. War with the Tarentine« and Pvrrhus Page 134—150. 



6 CONTENTS. 

Section IH. — The Roman Republic, from the beginning of the Carthaginian Wars, 
263 B. C, TO THE reduction of Greece and Carthage, 146 B. C. — 117 years. 
I. Carthage. — II. First Punic War. — III. Illyrian War. — IV. War with the Gauls. — V. Second 
Piuiic War.— VI. Grecian War.— VII. Syrian War.— VIII. Third Punic War. Page 150—165. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ROMAN HISTORY, FROM THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE, 146 B. C, 
TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 
I. Spain after the fall of Carthage. — II. Servile war in Sicily. — III. Dissensions of the Gracchi. 
— IV. Jugurthine War. — V. Germanic Invasion. — Vf. Ti;e Social War. — VII. First Mith- 
ridatic War.— VIII. Civil wars between Marius and Sylla.— IX. Servile war in Italy.— X. 
Second and Third Mithridatic wars. — XI. Conspiracy of Catiline. — XII. The First Triumvi- 
virate.— XIII. Civil war between Caesar and Pompey.— XIV. The Second Triumvirate. — 
XV. Octavius Augustus sole monarch of the Roman world, Page 165—188. 

PART II. 

MODERN HISTOHY. 

CHAPTER I. 

ROMAN HISTORY CONTINUED, FROM THE COMMENCEiMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, 
TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS: 
A. D. 1 TO A. D. 476. 
Section I. — Roman History from the commencement of the Christian era to the 

• DEATH OF DoMITIAN, THE LAST OF THE TWELVE CjESARS : A. D. 96. 

I. Earlier and later history of the Empire compared.— II. Julius Caesar.— HI. Augustus.— IV. 
Tiberius— V. Caligula.— VI. Claudius.— Vll. Nero.— VIII. Galba.— IX. Otho.— X. Vitellius. 
—XI. Vespasian.— XII. Jewish war.— XIII. Titus.- XIV. Domitian Page 188—202. 

Section II.— Roman History from the death of Domitian A. D. 96, to the establish- 
ment OF military despotism, after the murder of Alexander Seve'rus, 
A. D. 235: — 139 years. 
I. Nerva.- II. Trajan.— III. Adrian.— IV. Titus Antoninus.— V. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 
VI. Com' modus.— VII. Per' tinax.— VIH. Didius Julianus.— IX. Septim'ius Severus. — X. 
Caracalla.— XL Macrinus.— XII. Elagabalus.— Xlll. Alexander Severus.... Page 202— '211. 

Section III. — Roman History, from the establishment of military despotism after 

the reign of Alexander Seve'rus, A. D. 235, to the subversion of the 

Western Empire of the Romans, A. D. 476: — 241 years. 

I. RIaximin.— II. Gordian.— III. Pupienus and Balbitms.— IV. Second Gordian.— V. Philip the 
Arabian.— VI. Decius.— VII. Callus.— VIII. iEmilianus.— IX. Valerian.— X. Gallienus.— XI. .M, 
Aurelius Claudius.— XII. Quintilius.— XIII. Aur61ian.— XIV. Tacitus.— XV. Florian.— XVI. 
Probus.— XVII. Cams.— XVIII. Numerian and Carinus.— XIX. Diocletian.— XX. ftlaxim'ian 
—XXI. Gal6rius and Constan' tins.— XXII. Con' stantine.— XXIII. Constantius II.— XXIV. 
Julian the Apostate.— XXV. Jovian.— XXVI. Valenlin'ian and Valens.— XXVII. Barbarian 
inroads.— XXVIII. Gratian and Theodosius.— XXIX. Valeutinian II.— XXX. Honorius and 
Arcadius.— XXXI. Alaric the Goth.— XXXII. Valentin' ian HI.— XXXIII. Conquests of 
Attila.— XXXIV. The Vandals.— XXXV. Av' itus—Majorian.— XXXVI. Seyerus- XXXVII. 
Subversion of the Western Empire Page 211—235. 

CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES : EXTENDING FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE 
WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, A. D. 476, TO THE DISCOVERY OF 

AMERic.\, A. D. 149 '2 : — 1016 years. 
Section I.— General History, from the overthrow of the Western Empire of the 

Romans to the beginning of the tenth century :— 424 years. 
I. Introductory.— II. The monarchy of the Heruli.— HI. Monarchy of the Ostrogoths.— IV. Tiio 
era of Justinian— V. The Lombard monarchy.— VI. The Saracen empire.— VII. Monarchy 

of the Franks.— VIH. Euglish History Page 235-264. 

Section II. — General History during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and 
thirteenth centuries : A. D. 900 to 1300 : — 400 y^ears. 
1. Complete Dissolution of the Bonds of Society.— I. Confusion of Historic materials.— IL Tho 
Saracen world.— III. The Byzantine empire.— IV. Condition of Italy.— V. Condition of Ger 
many.- VI. Condition of France Page 264—273. 



COI^TENTS. 1 

2. The Feudal System, Chivalry, and the Crusades.— I. The Feudal sj'stem.— II. Chivalry.— 
Ilf, Origin of the Crusades.— IV. The First Crusade.— V. The Second Crusade.— VI. The 
Third Crusade.— VII. The Fourth Crusade.— VIII. The Fifth Crusade.— IX. Tartar con- 
quests.— X. The Sixth Crusade Page 273—288. 

3. English History. — I. England after the death of Alfred. — If. Norman conquest. — III. Re- 
duction of Ireland.— IV. Subjugation of Wales.— V. Scottish wars Page 288—297. 

Section III. — General History during thk fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 

1. England and France diiring the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries. — I. French and Engli-h 
wars, 1328 to 1453.— II, Wars of the two Roses.— III. Reign of Henry VII. of Fntr- 
laud Page 297—308. 

2. Other JVatio7is at the close of the Fifteenth century.~l. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.— II. 
The Russian empire.— III. The Ottoman empire.— IV. Tartar empire of Tamerlane.- V. 
Poland. — VI. The German empire. — VII. Switzerland. —Vlli. Italian History. — IX. 
Spain Page 308—318. 

3. ZJiscouerze*.— Navigation.— Jlagnetic Needle.— Art of Printing.— The Canaries.- Cape do 

Verd and Azore Islands.— The Portuguese.— Christopher Columbus.— Vasco de Gama 

Page 318—322. 

CHAPTER III. 

GENERAL HISTORY DURING THE SIXTBENTH CENTURY. 

1. Introductory.— UniiY of Ancient Histoiy.— The Middle Ages.— Modern History,— Plan of the 

subsequent part of the work,— Europe, Asia, Egypt, The New World, at the beginning of 
the sixteenth century Page 322— 323'. 

2. The Jlge of Henry VIII. and Charles V.—l. The States-system of Europe.— H. The rivalry 
between Francis I. and Charles V.— III. Henry VIII. of England.— IV. The Reformation.— 
V. Abdication and retirement of Charles V Page 325 — 339 

3. The Jige of Elizabeth.— I. Mary of Scotland.— II. Civil and religious war in France.— III. 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew.— IV. The Netherlands.- V. The Spanish Armada.— VI. 
Edict of Nantes.— VII. Character of Elizabeth Page 339—348. 

4. Cotemporary History. — I. The Portuguese Colonial Empire. — 11. Spanish Colonial Empire. 
—III. The Mogul Empire in India.— IV. The Persian Empire Page 348—353. 

CHAPTER lY. 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

i. The Thirty Years'' IFar.—J. The Palatine period of the war.— If. Danish period of the 
war.— III. Swedish period of the war. — IV. French period of the war Page 35,3 — 3(51. 

2. English History : The English Revolution. — I. Union of England and Scotland. — If. James 
I.— III. Charles L— IV, Scotch Rebellion,— V, The Long Parliament,— VI, Civil war.— VJI, The 
Scotch League.— VIII. Oliver Cromwell.— IX, Trial and execution of Charles 1.— X. Aboli- 
tion of monarchy, — XI. War with Holland, — XII, The Protectorate, — XIII. Restoration of 
monarchy.— XIV, James II,— XV, Revolution of 1688 Page 3G1— 377. 

3. French History : Wars of Louis XIV. — I, Administration of Cardinal Richelieu, — II, 
Mazarin's administration,— III. Louis XIV. His war with Spain, — With the Allied Powers- 
England, Spain, Holland, and Sweden. — internal affairs of France. — General war against 
Louis, — France at the end of the century Page 377 — 385. 

4. Cotemporary History. — I, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. — II, Poland. — III, Russia. — IV. 
Turkey.— V, Italy.— VL The Spanish Peninsula.— VII. Asiatic Nations.— VIII. Colonial 
Establishments.— American History Page 385—398. 

CHAPTER Y. 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

1, War of the Spanish succession, andclo'c of the reign of Louis XIV.~l. England, Germany, and 
Holland declare war against France, 1702, — II. Campaign of 1702. — III. Events of 1^03. — IV. 
Events of 1704.— V, Events of 1705-G.— VI, Campaign of 1707,— VII, Events of 1708,— VIII. 
1709,— IX. Treaty of Utrecht, 1713.— X. Character of the reign of Louis XIV . ., Page 398—407. 

2, Peter the Great of Russia, and Charles XII. of Sweden. — I. The north and east of Europe. — 
II. Beginning of hostilities against Sweden. — III. Defeat of the Russians at Narva. — IV. 
Victories of Charles in the vear 170-2. — V. March of Charles into Russia. — VI. Battle of 
Pultowa.— VII. The Turks.— VIII. Return, of Charles.—lX. Events of 1715.— X. Death of 
Charles.— XI. His character.— XJjL Death and character of Peter the Great., Page 407— 418. 

3, Spanish Wars and War of the Austrian Succession. — I. European Alliance. — ti. War 
between England and Spain.— III. C4iuse3 of the war of the Austrian succession. — \\. 



8 CONTENTS. 

Coalition ngainst Austria.— V. Events of 1742-3.— VI. Events of 1744.— VII. Events of 1745. 
— VIll. Invasion of England by the Young Pretender.— IX. Events in America.— X. 1746-7. 
—XI. Treaty of Aix-la-€hapellc, 1748 Page 41B— 423. 

4. The Seven Years'' JVar : 1756 — 1763. — I. Eight years of peace. — II. Causes of another war. 
— HI. Beginning of hostilities in America. — IV. European Alliances. — V. First Campaign 
of Fredericlv, 1756.— VI. 1757.— VII. 1758.— VIII. 17ot).-lX. 1760.— X. 17G1.— XI. Peace 
of 1763.— XII. Military character of Frederick Pkge 423—433. 

5. State of Europe. The American Revolution. — I. General peace in Europe. — 11. France. — 
III. Russia.— IV. Dismemberment of Poland. — V. State of parties in England. — VI. American 
Taxation. — VII. Opening of tlie war with the Colonies. — VIII. European relations with 
E!»gland. — IX. Alliiuico between France and the American States. — X. War between France 
and England.— XI. War between Spain and England. — XII. Armed Neutrality against Eng- 
land, — XIII. Rupture between England and Holland.— XIV. War in the East Indies.— XV. 
Treaty of 1782.— XVI. General Treaty of 1783 Page 433—445, 

6. The French Revolution : 1789 — 1800. — I. Democratic spirit. — II. Louis XVI. — III. Financial 
difficulties. — IV. The Stjxtes-General. — V. Revolutionary state of Paris. — VI. Great political 
changes. — VII. Famine and mobs. — VIII. New Constitution. — IX. Marshalling of parties. — 
X. The Emigrant Nobility. — XI. Attempted escape of the Royal Family. — XII. War de- 
clared against Austria. — XIII. JNIassacre of the 10th of August. — XIV. Massacre of Sep- 
tember. — XV. Trial and execution of Louis XVI. — XVI. Fall of the Girondists. — XV 11. 
The Reign of Terror.— XVIII. Triumph of Infidelity.— XIX. Fall of the Dautonists— XX. 
Vv'ar against Europe. — XXI. Insurrection of La Vendee. — XXII. Insurrection in the south 
of France.— XXIU. Fall of Robespierre, and end of the reign of Terror.— XXIV. The Eng- 
lish victorious at sea, and the French on laud. — XXV. Second partition of Poland. — XXVl. 
Third partition of Poland — 1795. XXVII. Dissolution of the coalition against France. — 
XXVllI. New Constitution. — XXIX. Insurrection in Paris. — 1796. XXX. Invasion of Ger- 
many.— XXXI. The Army of Italy.— XXXII. Disturbances in England.— 1797. XXXIIl. 
Napoleon's Austrian Campaign. — XXX IV. Treaty of Campo Formio. — XXXV. Establish- 
ment of Military Despotism in France.— 1798. XXXVI. Preparations for the invasion of 
England.— XXXVII. Expedition to Egypt.— XXXVIII. Battle of the Pyramids.— XXXIX. 
Battle of the Nile.— 1799. XL. Syrian Expedition.— XLl. Siege of Acre.— XLII. Battle of 
Mount Tabor.— XLIIL Battle of Aboukir.—XLIV. Overthrow of the Directory.— XLV. Na- 
poleon First Consul Page 445—475. 

CHAPTER YI. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Section I.— The Wars of Napoleon : 1800—1815. 
I. Events of the year 1800. War with Austria.— II. Events of 1801.— III. Events of 1802, the year 
of peace.— IV. Renewalof thewar, 1803.- V. Events of 1804. Napoleon Emperor.— VI. 1805, 
Coalition against France. Battle of Auslerlitz. — VII. 1806, Louis Napoleon king of Holland. 
Confederation of the Rhine. Battles of Jena and Auerstadt.— VHI. 1807, Treaty of Tilsit.— 
IX. 1808, Events in Spain. Beginning of the Peninsular War.— X. 181)9, War with Austria. 
Battle of Wagram. Napoleon's divorce from Josephine. — XI. 1810, Busaco and Torres 
Vedras. — XII. 1811, Badajoz and Albuera.— XIII. 1812, Russian Campaign. Smolensko — 
Borodino— Moscow. yVmerican War. — XIV. 1813, General coalition against Napoleon. 
Lutzen — Bautzen — Leipsic. — XV. 1814, Capitulation of Paris. Abdication of Napoleon. — 
XVI. 1815, Napoleon's return from Elba. Battle of Waterloo Page 475—503. 

Section II. — From the Fall of Napoleon to the present time. 

1. The Period of Peace : 1815— 1820.— I. Treaties of 1815.— II. England.— III. France 

Page 506— 5 12. 

2. Revolutions in Spain, Portugal, J\raples, Piedmont, Greece, France, Belgium-^ and Po- 
land : 1820—1831 Page 512—550. 

3. English Reforms. French Revolution of 18-18. Revolution in the Oerman States, Pi-ussia, 
and Austria. Revolution in Italy. Hungarian fVar. Usurpation of Louis J^apoleon : 
1831—1852 Page 550—562. 

GENERAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL VIEWS, ILLUSTRATED 
BY THE FOLLOWING MAPS. 



1. Ancient Greece 564 

2. Athens and its 1 1 arbors 566 

3. Islands of the iEgean Sea 568 

4. Asia Minor 570 

5. Persian Empire 572 

6. Palestine 574 

7. Turkey in Europe 576 

8. Ancient Italy 578 

9. Roman Empire 580 



10. Ancient Rome 582 

1 1. Chart of the World 584 

12. Battle Grounds of Napoleon, &c 586 

13. France, Spain, and Portugal 588 

14. Switzerland, Denmark, &c 59i) 

15. Netherlands, (Holland and Belgium).. 592 

16. Great Britain and Ireland .'^94 

17. Central Europe 596 

18. United States of America 598 



NOTE. For the " Index to the Geographical and Historical Notes" see end of the volume. 



PART I. 
ANCIENT HISTORY. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE EARLY AGES OF THE WORLD, PRIOR TO THE COMMENCE- 
MENT OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 

ANALYSIS. 1. The Creation. The earth a chaotic mass. Creation of light. Separation 
of land and water.— 2. Vegetable life. The heavenly bodies. Animal life.— 3. God's blessing 
on hia works. Creation of man. Dominion given to him. Institution of the sabbath.— 4. An- 
tediluvian History. The subjects treated of.— 5. The earth immediately after the deluge. 
The inheritance given to Noah and his children.— 6. The building of Babel. [Euphrates. Geo- 
graphical and historical accoimt of the surrounding country.] Confusion of tongues, and dis- 
persion of the human family.- 7. Supposed directions taken by Noah and his sons.— 8. Egypt- 
ian History. Mis'raim, the founder of the Egyptian nation. [Egypt.] The government 
established by him. Subverted by M6nes, 2400 D. C.-9. Accomits given by Herod' otus, J036- 
phus, and others. [Memphis and Thebes. Description of.] Traditions relating to Mencs. 
His great celebrity. [The Nile.]-10. Egyptian liistory from Menes to Abraham. The erection 
of the Egyptian pyramids. [Description of them.] Evidences of Egyptian civilization during 
the time of Abraham.— 11. The Shepherd Kings in Lower Egypt. Their final expulsion, 1900 
B. C. Joseph, governor of Egypt. [Goshen.] Commencement of Grecian history.— 12. Asia- 
tic History. [Assyria. Nineveh.] Ashur and Nimrod. [Babylon.] The worship of Nim- 
rod.— 13. Conflicting accounts of Nimis. Assyria and Babylon during his reign, and that of his 
successor.- 14. Account of Semir' amis. Her conquests, &c. [Indus R.] The history of Assy- 
ria subsequent to the reign of Semir' amis. 

L The history of the world which we inhabit commences with 
the first act of creation, when, in the language of Moses, 
the earliest sacred historian, " God created the heavens ' \^^^^ 
and the earth." We are told that the earth was " with- 
out form, and void" — a shapeless, chaotic mass, shrouded in a man- 
tle of darkness. But " God said, let there he light ; and there was 
light." At the command of the same infinite power the waters rolled 
together into their appointed places, forming seas and oceans ; and 
the dry land appeared. 

2. Then the mysteries of vegetable life began to start into being ; 
beautiful shrubs and flowers adorned the fields, lofty trees waved in 
the forests, and herbs and grasses covered the ground with verdure. 



12 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

The stars, those gems of evening, shone forth in the sky ; and two 
greater lights were set in the firmament, to divide the day from the 
night, and to be " for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for 
years." Then the finny-tribes sported in " the waters of the seas," 
the birds of heaven filled the air with their melody, and the earth 
brought forth abundantly " cattle and creeping things," and " every 
living creature after its kind." 

3. And when the Almighty architect looked upon the objects of 
creation, he saw that " all were good," and he blessed the works of 
his hands. Then he " created man^ in his own image;" in the like- 
ness of God, "male and female created he them;" and he gave 
them " dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the 
air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This 
was the last great act of creation, and thus God ended the work 
which he had made ; and having rested from his labors, he sanctified 
a sabbath or day of rest, ever to be kept holy, in grateful remem- 
brance of Him who made all things, and who bestows upon man all 
the blessings which he enjoys. 

4. The only history of the human family from the creation of 
II ANTEDi- ^<^3,m to the time of the deluge,^ a period of more than 
LuviANHis- two thousand years, is contained in the first six chap- 

'^'^^''^* ters of the book of Genesis, supposed to have been written 
by Moses more than fourteen hundred years after the flood. The 
fall of our first parents from a state of innocence and purity, the 
transgression of Cain and the death of Abel, together with a gen- 
ealogy of the patriarchs, and an account of the exceeding wicked- 
ness of mankind, are the principal subjects treated of in the brief 
history of the antediluvian world. 

5. When Noah and his family came forth from the ark, after the 
deluge had subsided, the earth was again a barren waste ; for the 
waters had prevailed exceedingly, so that the hill-tops and the moun- 
tains were covered ; and every fowl, and beast, and creeping thing, 
and every man that had been left exposed to the raging flood, had 
been destroyed from the earth. Noah only remained alive, and 
they that had been saved with him in the ark ; and to him, and his 
three sons, whose names' were Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the whole 
earth was now given for an inheritance. 

6. About two hundred years after the flood, we find the sons of 
Noah and their descendants, or many of them, assembled on the 

n. 5411 R. O. b. 3155 P.. C. 



Chap. I] EARLY AGES. 13 

banks of the Euphrates/ in a region called the " Land of Shinar," 
ajid there beginning to build a city, — together with a tower, whose 
top, tjRijy boasted, should reach unto heaven. But the Lord came 
down to see the city and the tower which the children of men in 
their pride and impiety were building ; and he there confounded the 
language of the workmen, that they might not understand one an- 
other ; and thus the building of the tower, which was called Babel, 
was abandoned, and the people were scattered abroad over the whole 
earth. 

7. It is generally supposed that Noah himself, after this event, 
journeyed eastward, and founded the empire of China ; that Shem 
was the father of the nations of Southern Asia ; that Ham peopled 
Egypt ; and that the descendants of Japheth migrated westward 
and settled in the countries of Europe, or, as they are called in 
Scripture, the "Isles of the Gentiles." 

8. Soon after the dispersion of mankind from Babel, it is supposed 
that Mis'raim, one of the sons of Ham, journeyed into 

Egypt," where he became the founder of the most ancient "^^jfgTORy ^^ 
and renowned nation of antiquity. The government es- 
tablished by him is believed to have been that of an aristocratic 

1. The Euphrates, the most considerable river of Western Asia, has its sources in the table 
lands of Armenia, about ninety miles from the south-eastern borders of the Black Sea. The 
sources of the Tigris are in the same region, but farther south. The general direction of both 
rivers is south-east, to their entrance into the head of the Persian Gulf. (See Map, p. 15.) So 
late as the age of Alexander the Great, each of these rivers preserved a separate course to the 
sea, but not long after they became united about eighty miles from their mouth, from which 
point they have ever since continued to flow in a single stream. Both rivers are na%igable a 
considerable distance, — both have their regular inundations ; rising tv/ice a year — first in De- 
cember, in consequence of the autumnal rains ; and next from March till June, owing to the 
melting of the mountain snows. The Scriptures place the Garden of Eden on the banks of the 
Euphrates, but the exact site is unknown. 

We learn that soon after the deluge, the country in the vicinity of the two rivers Tigris and 
Euphrates, where stood the tower of Babel, was known as the Land of Shinar : afterwards the 
empire of Assyria or Babylon flourished here; and still later, the country between the two 
rivers was called by the ancient Greeks, Mcsopotwrnia, — a compound of two Greek words, 
(mesos and putamos,) signifying "between the rivers." In ancient times the banks of both 
rivers were studded with cities of the first rank. On the eastern bank of the Tigris stood 
Nineveh ; and on both sides of the Euphrates stood the mighty Babylon, " the glory of king- 
doms," and "the beauty of the Chaldee's excellency." Lower Mesopotamia, both above and 
below Babylon, was anciently intersected by canals in every direction, many of which can still 
be traced; and some of them could easily be restored to their original condition. (See 
Map, p. 15.) 

2. Ancient Egypt, called by the Hebrews Mis' raim, may be divided into two principal por- 
tions ; Upper or Soutliern Egypt, of which Thebes was the capital, and Lower Egypt, whose 
capital was Memphis. That portion of Lower Egypt embraced within the mouths or outlets of 
the Nile, the Greeks afterwards called the Delta, from its resemblance to the form of the 
Greek letter of that name. (A) Ancient Egypt probably embraced all of the present Nubia, 
and perlmp'? a part of Abyssinia. Modem Egypt is bounded on the north by the Mediterra- 



14 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part i 

priesthood, wliose members were tlie patrons of the arts and sciences ; 
and it is supposed that the nation was divided into three distinct 
classes, — the priests, the military, and the people ; — the two former 
holding the latter and most nmnerous body in subjection. After 
this government had existed nearly two centuries, under rulers whose 
names have perished, Menes, a military chieftain, is supposed to 
have subverted the ancient sacerdotal despotism, and to have estab- 
lished the first civil monarchy, about 2400 years before the Christian 
era. Menes was the first Pharaoh^ a name common to all the kings 
of Egypt. 

9. Upon the authority of Herod' otus^ and Josephus,'^ to the first 
king, Menes, is attributed the founding of Memphis,^ probably the 
most ancient city in Egypt. Otlier writers ascribe to him the build- 
ing of Thebes* also ; but some suppose that Thebes was built many 

nean, on the east by the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea, on the south by Nubia, and on the 
west by the Great Desert and the province of Barca. 

The cultivated portion of Eg}T5t, embraced mostly within a narrow valley of from five to 
twenty miles in width, is indebted wholly to the annual inundations of the Nile for its fertility ; 
and without them, would soon become a barren waste. The river begins to swell, in its higher 
parts, in April ; but at the Delta no increase occurs until the beginning of June. Its greatest 
height there is in September, when the Delta is almost entirely under water. By the end of 
November the waters leave the land altogether, having deposited a rich alluviiun. Then the 
Egj'ptian spring commences, at a season corresponding to our winter, when the whole country, 
covered with a vivid green, bears the aspect of a fruitful garden. {Map., p. 15.) 

1. Herod' ofws— the earliest of the Greek historians : bom 484 B. C. 

2. Josephus — a celebrated Jewish historian : born at Jerusalem, A. D. 37. 

3. Memphis^ a famous city of Egypt, whose origin dates beyond the period of authentic his- 
tory, is supposed to have stood on the western bank of the Nile, about fifteen miles south from 
the apex of the Delta — the point whence the waters of the river diverge to enter the sea by 
difierent channels. But few relics of its magnificence now occupy the ground where the city 
once stood, the materials having been mostly removed for the building of modern edifices. At 
the time of our Saviour, Memphis was the second city in Egypt, and next in importance to 
Alexandria, the capital ; but its decay had already begun. Even in the twelfth century of the 
Cliristian era, after the lapse of four thousand years from its origin, it is described by an Oriem- 
tal writer as containing " works so wonderful that they confound even a reflecting mind, and 
such as the most eloquent would not be able to describe." {Map, p. 15.) 

4. The ruins of Thebes, " the capital of a by-gone world," are situated in the narrow valley 
of the Nile, in Upper Egypt, extending about seven miles along both banks of the river. Here 
are still to be seen magnificent ruins of temples, palaces, colossal statues, obelisks, and tombs, 
which attest the exceeding wealth and power of the early Egyptians. The city is supposed to 
have attained its greatest splendor about fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. On 
the east side of the river the principal ruins are those of Carnac and Luxor, about a mile and a 
half apart. Among the former are the remains of a temple dedicated to yVmmon, the Jupiter 
of the Egyptians, covering more than nine acres of ground. A large portion of this stupendous 
structure is still standing. The principal front to this building is 368 feet in length, and 148 feet 
in height, with a door-way in the middle C4 feet high. One of the halls in this vast building 
covers an area of more than an acre and a quarter ; and its roof, consisting of enonnous slabs 
of stone, has been supported by 134 huge columns. The roof of what is supposed to have been 
the sanctuary, or place from which the oracles were delivered, is composed of three blocks of 
granite, painted with clusters of gilt stars on a blue ground. The entrance to this room v/aa 
marked by four noble obelisks, each 70 feet hi-h, three of which are now standing. At Luxor 



Chap. I.j 



EARLY AGES. 



15 



centuries later, Menes appears to have been occupied, during most 
of his reign, in wars with foreign nations to us unknown. According 
to numerous traditions, recorded in later ages, he also cultivated the 
arts of peace ; he protected religion and the priesthood, and erected 
temples ; he built walls of defence on the frontier of his kingdom — 
and he dug numerous canals, and constructed dikes, both to draw off 






^onflif nffe Uri^/f fff \ 7 




MAP ILLUSTRATIVE OF EARLY HISTORY. 

are to be seen the remains of a magnificent palace, about 800 feet in length by 200 in width. 
On each side of the doorway is a colossal statue, measuring 44 feet from the ground. Fronting 
these statues were two obelisks, each' formed of a single block of red granite, 80 feet in height, 
and beautifully sculptured. A few years ago one of these obelisks was taken down, and con- 
veyed, at great expense, to the city of Paris, where it has been erected in the Place de la Con- 
corde. Among the ruins on the west side of the river, at Medinet Abou, are two sitting colossal 
figures, each about 50 feet in height, supported by pedestals of corresponding dimensions. On 
the same side of the river, in the mountain-range that skirts the valley, and westward of tho 
ruins, are the famous catacombs, or burial-places of the ancient inhabitants, excavated in tho 
solid rock. (Jl/ap, p. 15.) 



16 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

the waters of the Nile^ for enriching the cultivated lands, and to 
prevent inundations. His name is common in ancient records, while 
many subsequent monarchs of Egypt have been forgotten. Monu- 
ments still exist which attest the veneration in which he was held 
by his posterity. 

10. From the time of Menes until about the 21st century before 
Christ, the period when Abraham is supposed to have visited Egypt,* 
little is known of Egyptian history. It appears, however, from 
hieroglyphic inscriptions, first interpreted in the present century, and 
corroborated by traditions and some vague historic records, that the 
greatest Egyptian pyramids^ were erected three or four hundred 
years before the time of Abraham, and eight or nine hundred years 
before the era of Moses, — showing a truly astonishing degree of 
power and grandeur attained by the Egyptian monarchy more than 
four thousand years ago. When Abraham visited Egypt he was re- 

1. The JVile, a large river of eastern Africa, is formed by the jiinction of the White River and 
the Blue River in the country of Seunaar, whence the united stream flows northward, in a very 
winding course, through Nubia and Egypt, and enters the Mediterranean through two mouths, 
those of Rosetta and Damietta, the former or most westerly of which has a width of about 1800 
feet ; and the latter of about 900, The Rosetta channel has a depth of about five feet in tlio dry 
season, and the Damietta channel of seven or eight feet when the river is lowest. Formerly the 
Nile entered the sea by seven different channels, several of which still occasionally serve for 
canals, and purposes of irrigation. During the last thirteen hundred miles of its course, the 
Nile receives no tributary on either side. The TF/iite river, generally regarded as the true Nile, 
about whose source no satisfactory knowledge has yet been obtained, is supposed to have its 
rise in the highlands of Central Africa, north of the Equator. {Map, p. 15.) 

2. The pyram ids of Egypt are vast artificial structures, most of them of stone, scattered at 
irregular intervals along the western valley of the Nile from Meroe, (Mer-o-we) in modern 
Nubia, to the site of ancient Memphis near Cairo. (Ki-ro.) The largest, best known, and most 
celebrated, are the three pyramids of Ghizeh, situated on a platform of rock about 150 feet 
above the level of the surrounding desert, near the ruins of ISIemphis, seven or eight miles 
south-west from Cairo. The largest of these, the famous pyramid of Cheops, is a gigantic struc- 
ture, the base of which covers a surface of about eleven acres. The sides of the base corre- 
spond in direction with tlie four cardinal points, and each measures, at the foundation, 746 feet. 
The perpendicular height is about 480 feet, which is 43 feet 9 inches higher than St. Peters at 
Rome, the loftiest edifice of modern times. This huge fabric consists of two hundred and six 
layers of vast blocks of stone, rising above each other in the form of steps, the thickness of 
which diminishes as the height of the pyramid increases, the lower layers being nearly five feel 
in thickness, and the upper ones about eighteen inches. The summit of the pyramid appears 
to have been, originally, a level platform, sixteen or eighteen feet square. Within this pyramid 
several chambers have been discovered, lined with immense slabs of granite, which must have 
been conveyed thither from a great distance up the Nile. The second pyramid at Ghizeh is 
coated over with polished stone 140 feet downwards from the summit, thereby removing the 
inequalities occasioned by the steps, and rendering the surface smooth and uniform. Eerod' o- 
tus states, from information derived from the Egyptian priests, that one hundred thousand men 
were employed twenty years in constructing the great pyramid of Ghizeh, and that ten years 
had been spent, previously, in quarrying the stones and conveying tlsem to the place. The re- 
maining pyramids of Egypt correspond, in their general character, with the one described, with 
the exception that several of them are constructed of sun-burnt brick. No reasonable doubt 
now exists that the pvramids were designed as the burial places of kings. 

a. 2077 B. C 



CuAP. I.] EA RLY AGES. 1 7 

ceived with the hospitality and kindness becoming a civilized nation ; 
and when he left Egypt, to return to his own country, the ruling 
monarch dismissed him and all his people, " rich in cattle, in silver, 
and in gold." 

11. Nearly a hundred years before the time of Abraham's visit to 
Egypt, Lower Egypt had been invaded and subdued" by the Hyc' sos, 
or Shepherd Kings, a roving people from the eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean, — probably the same that were known, at a later 
period, in sacred history, as the Philistines, and still later as the 
Phoenicians. Kings of this race continued to rule over Lower Egypt 
during a period of 260 years, but they were finally expelled,'' and 
driven back to their original seats in Asia. During their dominion, 
Upper Egypt, with Thebes its capital, appears to have remained 
under the government of the native Egyptians. A few years after 
the expulsion of the Shepherd Kings, Joseph was appointed'' governor 
or regent of Egypt, under one of the Pharaohs ; and the family of 
Jacob was settled^ in the land of Goshen.^ It was during the resi- 
dence of the Israelites in Egypt that we date the commencement of 
Grecian history, with the supposed founding of Argos by In' achus, 
1856 years before the Christian era. 

12. During the early period of Egyptian history which we have 
described, kingdoms arose and mighty cities were found- 
ed in those regions of Asia first peopled by the imme- 
diate descendants of Noah. After the dispersion of 
mankind from Babel, Ashur, one of the sons of Shem, remained in 
the vicinity of that place ; and by many he is regarded as the 
founder of the Assyrian empire,^ and the builder of Nineveh.^ But 

1. "The land of Ooshen lay along the most easterly branch of the Nile, and on the east side 
of it; for it is evident that at the time of the Exode the Israelites did not cross the Nile. (Hale's 
Analysis of Chronology, i. 374.) " The ' land of Goshen' was between Egypt and Canaan, not 
far from the Isthmus of Suez, on the eastern side of the Nile." (See Map, p. 15.) {Cockayiie''s 
Hist, of the Jews, p. 7.) 

2. The early province or kingdom of Assyria is usually considered as having been on the 
eastern bank of the river Tigris, having Nineveh for its capital. But it is probable that bolh 
Nineveh and Babylon belonged to the early Assyrian empire, and that these two cities were at 
times the capitals of separate monarchies, and at times imited under one government, whose 
territories were ever changing by conquest, and by alliances with surrounding tribes or nations, 

3. The city oi jVineveh is supposed to have stood on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite the 
modem city of Mosul. (See J\Inp, p, 15.) Its site was probably identical with that of tlie pre- 
sent small village of Niinia, and what is called the " tomb of Jonah ;" which are surrounded by 
vast heaps of ruins, and vestiges of mounds, from which bricks and pieces of gypsum are dug 
out, with inscriptions closely resembling those found among the ruins of Babylon. 

Of the early history of Nineveh little is known. Some eariy writers describe it as larger than 
Babylon ; but little dependence can be placed on their statements. It is believed, however, 
a. 2159 B, C. b. 1900 B. C. c. iy72 B. C. d. 1863 B. C. 



IV. ASIATIC 
HISTORY. 



18 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

otliers^ ascribe this lienor to Nimrocl, a grandson of Ham, who, as they 
suppose, having obtained possession of the provinces of Ashur, built 
Nineveh, and encompassing Babel with walls, and rebuilding the desert- 
ed city, made it the capital of his empire, under the name of Babylon,^ 



that the walls included, besides the buildings of the city, a large extent of well-cultivated gar- 
dens and pastiu-e grounds. In the ninth century before Christ, it was described by the prophet 
Jonah as "an exceeding great city of three days' journey," and as containing "more than six 
score thousand persons that could not distinguish between their right hand and their left." It 
is generally believed that the expression here used denoted children, and that the entire popu- 
lation of the city numbered seven or eight hundred thousand souls. 

Nineveh was a city of great commercial importance. The prophet Nahum thus addresses 
her : "Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven." (iii. 16.) Nineveh was 
besieged and taken by Arbaces the Mede, in the eighth century before Christ ; and in the year 
612 it fell into the hands of Ahasuerus, or Cyaxares, king of Media, who took great " spoil of 
silver and gold, and none end of the store and glory, out of all her pleasant fiu-niture," making 
her " empty, and void, and waste." (Map, p. 15.) 

1. According to our English Bible (Genesis, x. 11), '■'• ^shur went forth out of the land of Shi- 
n^.r (Babylon) and builded Nineveh." But by many this reading is supposed to be a wrong 
translation, and that the passage should read, " From that land he (Nimrod) went forth into 
Ashur, (the name of a province,) and built Nineveh." ("De terra ilia egressus est Assur et 
aedificavit Nineveh." (See Anthon's Classical Dictionary, article Assyria. See, also, the subject 
examined in Hale's Analysis of Chronology, i. 450-1.) 

2. Ancient Babyhn, once the greatest, most magnificent, and most powerful city of the world, 
stood on both sides of the river Euphrates, about 350 miles from the entrance of that stream 
into the Persian Gulf. The building of Babel was probably the commencement of the city, but 
it is supposed to have attained its greatest glory during the reign of the Assyrian queen, Scmir- 
arais. Different writers give different acccounts of the extent of this city. The Greek historian 
Herod' otus, who visited it in the fourth century before Christ, while its walls were still standing 
and much of its early magnificence remaining, described it as a perfect square, the walls of 
each side being 120 furlongs, or fifteen miles in length. According to this computation the city 
embraced an area of 225 square miles. But Diodorus reduces the supposed area to 72 square 
miles ; — equal, however, to three and a half times the area of London, with all its suburbs. 
Some writers have supposed that the city contained a population of at least five millions of 
people. Others have reduced this 'estimate to one million. It is highly improbable that the 
whole of the immense area inclosed by the walls was filled with the buildmgs of a compact 
city. ^ 

The walls of Babylon, which were built of large bricks cemented with bitumen, are said to 
have been 350 feet high, and 87 feet in thickness, flanked with lofty towers, and pierced by 100 
gates of brass. The two portions of the city, on each side of the Euphrates, were connected by 
a bridge of stone, which rested on arches of the same material. The temple of Jupiter Belus, 
supposed to have been the tower of Babel, is described by Herod' otus as an immense structure, 
square at the base, and rising, in eight distinct stories, to the height of nearly GOO feet. Herod'- 
otus says that when he visited Babylon the brazen gates of this temple were still to be seen, 
and (that in the upper story there was a couch magnificently adorned, and near it a table of solid 
gold. Herod' otus also mentions a statue of gold twelve cubits high, — supposed to have been 
the "golden image" set up by Nebuchadnezzar. The site of this temple has been identified as 
that of the ruins now called by the Arabs the " Birs Nimroud," or Towor of JSTimrod. 

Later writers than Herod' otus speak of a tunnel under the Euphrates— subterranean banquet- 
ing rooms of brass — and hanging gardens eleva.{ed three hundred feet above the city; but as 
Herod' otus is silent on these points, serious doubts have been entertained of the existence of 
these structures. 

Nothing now remains of the buildings of ancient Babylon but immense and shapeless masses 
of ruins; their sites being partly occupied by the modem and meanly built town of Hillah, on 
the western bank of the Euphrates. This town, surrounded by mud walls, contains a mixed 
Arabinn and Jewish population of six or seven thousand souls, {Jhip, p. 15.) 



Chap. I.J EAELY AGES. 19 

about 600 years after the deluge, and 2555 years before the Chris- 
tian era. After his death, Nimrod was deified for his great actions, 
and called Belus : and it is supposed that the tower of Babel, rising 
high above the walls of Babylon, but still in an unfinished state, was 
consecrated to his worship. 

13. "While some believe that the monarch Ninus was the son of 
Nimrod, and that Assyria and Babylon formed one united empire 
under the immediate successors of the first founder ; others regard 
Ninus as an Assyrian prince, who, by conquering Babylon, united 
the hitherto separate empires, more than four hundred years after 
the reign of Nimrod ; while others still regard Ninus as only a per- 
sonification of Nineveh-* During the reign of Ninus, and also 
during that of his supposed queen and successor, Semir' amis, the 
boundaries of the united Assyrian and Babylonian empires are said 
to have been greatly enlarged by conquest ; but the accounts that 
are given of these events are evidently so exaggerated, that little re- 
liance can be placed upon them. 

14. Semir'amis, who was raised from an humble, station to be- 
come the queen of Ninus, is described as a woman of uncommon 
courage and masculine character, the main object of whose ambition 
was to immortalize her name by the greatness of her exploits. Her 
conquests are said to have embraced nearly all the then known world, 
extending as far as Central Africa on the one hand, and as far as 
the Indus,^ in Asia, on the other. She is said to have raised, at one 
time, an army of more than three millions of men, and to have em- 
ployed two millions of workmen in adorning Babylon — statements 
wholly inconsistent with the current opinion of the sparse population 
of the world at this early period. After the reign of Semir' amis, 
which is supposed to have been during the time of the sojourn of 
the Israelites in Egypt, little is known of the history of Assyria for 
more than thirty generations. 

1. The river Indus, or Stnde, rises in the Himmaleh mountaing, and running in a soulh-wcst- 
erly direction enters the Arabian Sea near the western extremity of Hindostan. 
a. Niebuhr's Ancient Hist. i. 55. 



20 



ANCIENT HISTORY. Part L 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FABULOUS AND LEGENDARY PERIOD OF GRECIAN 
HISTORY : 

ENDING WITH THE CLOSE OF THE TROJAN WAR, 1183 B. C. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Extent of Ancient Greece. Of Modern Greece. The most ancient name of 
the country.— 2. The two general divisions of Modern Greece. Extent of Northern Greece. 
Of the Mor6a. Whole area of the country so renowned in history.— 3. The general surface of 
the country. Its fertility.— 4. Mountains of Greece. Rivers. Climate. The seasons. Scenery. 
Classical associations. 

5. Grecian Mythology, the proper introduction to Grecian history.— 6. Chaos, Earth, and 
Heaven. The oflfspring of Earth and U' ranus. [U' ranus ; the Titans : the Cyclopes.]— 7. U' ranus 
is dethroned, and is succeeded by Sat' urn. [The Furies: the Giants: and the Melian NjTnphs. 
Venus. Sat'iu-n, Jupiter. Nep'tmie. Pliito.]— 8. War of thc^ Titans against Sat' urn. War 
of the Giants with Jupiter. The result. New dj-nasty of the gods.— 9. The wives of Jupiter. 
[Juno.] His offspring. [Mer'cury. Mars. Apol'lo. Vul'cau. Diana. Miner' va.] Other 
celestial divinities. [C6re3. Ves'ta.]— 10. Other deities not included among the celestials. 
[Bac'chus. Iris. Hebe. The Muses. The Fates. The Graces.] Monsters. [Harpies. Gor- 
gons.] Rebellions against Jupiter. [Olym'pus.]— 11. Numbers, and character, of the legends 
of the gods. Vulgar belief, and philosophical explanations of them. 

12. Earliest Inhabitants of Greece. The Pelas' gians. Tribes included undea- this 
name.— 13. Character and civilization of the Pelas' gians. [Cyclopean structm-es. Asia 
Minor.]— 14. Foreign Settlers IN Greece. Reputed founding of Ar'gos. [Ar' gos. Ar'- 
golis. Oceanus. In' achus.] The accounts of the early Grecian settlements not rehable.— 15. 
The founding of Athens. [At' tica. Ogy' ges.] The elements of Grecian civilization attributed 
to C6crops. The story of C6crops doubtless fabulous.— 16. Legend of the contest between Min- 
er' va and Nep' tune.— 17, Cran'aus and Amphic'tyon. Dau'aus and Cad' mus, [Bceotia. 
Thebes.]— 18. General character of the accounts of foreign settlers in Greece. Value of these tra- 
ditions. The probable truth in relation to them, which accomits for the intermixture of foreign 
with Grecian mythology, [^gean Sea.] 

19. The Hellenes appear in Thessaly, about 1384 B. C, and become the ruling class among 
the Grecians.— 20. Hellen the son of Deucalion. The several Grecian tribes. The Julian tribe. 
—21. The Heroic Age. Our knowledge of Grecian history during this period. Character and 
value of the Heroic legends. The most important of them. [1st. H6rcules. 2d. Theseus. 3d. 
Argonaiitic expedition. 4th. Theban and Ar'golic war.] — 22. The Argonautic expedition 
thought the most important. Probably a poetic fiction. [Samothrace. Euxine Sea.] Proba- 
bility of naval expeditions at this early period, and their results. [Minos. Crete.]— 23. Open- 
ing •f the Trojan war. Its alleged causes. [Troy. Lacedae'mon.]— 24. Paris,— the flight of 
Helen, — the war which followed. — 25. Remarks on the supposed reality of the war. [The fable 
of Helen.] — 26. What kind of truth is to be extracted from Homer's acco^M^ 

Cotemporary History. — 1. Our limited knowledge of cotemporary history during this 
period. Rome. Europe. Central Western Asia. Egyptian History. — 2. The conquests of 
Sesos' tris. [Libya. Ethiopia. The Ganges. Thracians and Scythians.] The columns erect- 
ed by Sesos' tris.— 3. Statues of Sesostris at Ipsam' boul. Historical sculptures. — 4. Remarks 
on the evidences of the existence of this conqueror. The close of his reign. Subsequent 
Egyptian history.— 5. The Israelites at the period of the commencement of Grecian history. 
Their situation after the death of Joseph. Their exodus from Egypt, 1G48 B. C— 6, Wander- 
ings in the wildernesa Passage of the Jordan. [Arabia. Jordan. Palestine.] Death of 



Chap. II.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 21 

Moses. Israel during the time of Joshua and the elders.— 7. Israel ruled by judges until the 
time of Saul. The Israelites frequently apostatize to idolatry. [Moabites. Canaanites.]— 8, 
Their deliverance from the Mid'ianites and Am'alekitcs. [Localities of these tribes.]— 9. De- 
liverance from the Philistines and Am' monites. [Localities of these tribes.] Samson, Eli, and 
Samuel. Saul anointed king over Israel, 1110 B. C— 10. Closing remarks. 

1. GrREECE, wMcli is the Roman name of the country whose his- 
I GEOGRAPHi- ^^^y ^^ ^^^^^ proceed to narrate, but which was called 

CAL DEscRip- by the natives Hel^ las, denoting the country of the 
.TioN. Hellenes, comprised, in its most flourishing period, 
nearly the whole of the great eastern peninsula of southern Europe 
— extending north to the northern extremity of the waters of the 
Grecian Archipelago. Modern Greece, however, has a less extent 
on the north, as Thes' saly, Epirus, and Macedonia have been taken 
from it, and annexed to the Turkish empire. The area of Modern 
Greece is less than that of Portugal ; but owing to the irregularities 
of its shores, its range of seacoast is greater than that of the whole 
of Spain. The most ancient name by which Greece was known to 
other nations was Ionia, — a term which Joseplius derives from Ja- 
van, the son of Japhet, and grandson of Noah : although the Greeks 
themselves applied the term lones only to the descendants of the 
fabulous /' on, son of Xiithus. 

2. Modern Greece is divided into two principal portions : — North- 
ern Greece or Hel' las, and Southern Greece, or Morea — anciently 
called Peloponnesus. The former includes the country of the an- 
cient Grecian States, Acarnania, j^tolia, Locris, Phocis, Doris, 
Boeotia, Euboe' a, and At' tica ; and the latter, the Peloponnesian 
States of E' lis, Achaia, Cor' inth, Ar' golis, Laconia, and Messenia; 
whose localities may be learned from the accompanying map. The 
greatest length of the northern portion, which is from north-west to 
south-east, is about two hundred miles, with an average width of 
fifty miles. The greatest length of the Morea, which is from north 
to south, is about one hundred and forty miles. The whole area of 
the country so renowned in history under the name of Greece or 
Hel' las, is only about twenty thousand square miles, which is less 
than half the area of the State of Pennsylvania. 

3. The general surface of Greece is mountainous ; and almost the 
only fertile spots are the numerous and usually narrow plains along 
the sea-shore and the banks of rivers, or, as in several places, large 
basins, which apparently once formed the beds of mountain lakes. 
The largest tracts of level country are in western Hel' las, and along 
the northern and north-western shores of the Morea. 



22 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

4. The moimtalns of Grreece are of the Alpine character, and are 
remarkable for their numerous grottos and caverns. Their abrupt 
summits never rise to the regions of perpetual snow. There are no 
navigable rivers in Greece, but this want is obviated by the numerous 
gulfs and inlets of the sea, which indent the coast on every side, and 
thus furnish unusual facilities to commerce, while they add to the 
Variety and beauty of the scenery. The climate of Grreece is for the 
inost part healthy, except in the low and marshy tracts around the 
shores and lakes. The winters are short. Spring and autumn are 
rainy seasons, when many parts of the country are inundated ; but 
during the whole summer, which comprises half the year, a cloud in 
the sky is rare in several parts of the country. Grecian scenery is 
unsurpassed in romantic wildness and beauty ; but our deepest inter- 
est in the country arises from its classical associations, and the ruins 
of ancient art and splendor scattered over it. 

5. As the Greeks, in common with the Egyptians and other East- 
ern nations, placed the reign of the gods anterior to the 

race of mortals, therefore Grecian mythology^ forms the MYXHOLoor 
most appropriate introduction to Grecian history. 

6. According to Grecian philosophy, first in the order of time 
came Chaos, a heterogeneous mass containing all the seeds of nature ; 
then " broad-breasted Earth," the mother of the gods, who produced 
U' ranus, or Heaven, the mountains, and the barren and billowy sea. 
Then Earth married U' ranus' or Heaven, and from this union came 
a numerous and powerful brood, the Titans^ and the Cyclopes,^ and 
the gods of the wintry season, — Kot' tos, Briareus, and Gy' ges, who 
had each a hundred hands, — supposed to be personifications of the 
hail, the rain, and the snow. 

1. Mythology, from two Greek words signifying a '■'•fallc " and a " discourse,'''' is a system 
of myths, or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the deities which heathen nations 
have supposed to preside over the world, or to influence its affiiirs. 

2. U' ranus, from a Greek word signifying "heaven," or "sky," was the most ancient of all 
the gods. 

3. The Titans were six males — Oceanus, Coios, Crios, Hyperion, Japetus, and Kronos, or 
Sat' urn, and six females,— Th6ia, Rh6a, Themis, Mnemos'yne, Phoe'be, and T6thys. Oceanus, 
or the Ocean, espoused his sister T6thys, and their children were the rivers of the earth, and the 
tliree thousand Oceanides or Ocean-nymphs. Hyperion married his sister Th6ia, by whom lie 
had Aurora, or the morning, and also the sun and moon. 

4. The Cyclopes were a race of gigantic size, having but one eye, and that placed in the centre 
of the forehead. According to some accounts there were many of this race, but according to 
the poet Hesiod, the principal authority in Grecian mythology, they were only throe in num- 
ber. Bran' tes, Ster' opes, and Jlr' ges, words which signify in the Greek, Thunder, Lightning, 
and the rapid Flame. The poets converted them into smiths — the assistants of the fire-god 
Vulcan. The Cyclopes were probably personifications of the energies of the " powers of the 
air." 



HEATHEl^ DEITIIS. 







^-\i?1 



^; 






- ^ JUNO. \> ^ ^ CERES. V ^ 



< / VESTA. ^ 



24 ANCIEKT HISTORY. [Part I. 

7. The Titans made war upon tlieir father, who was wounded by 
Sat' urn/ the youngest and bravest of his sons. From the drops of 
blood which flowed from the wound and fell upon the earth, sprung 
the Furies,^ the Griants,^ and the Melian nymphs ;* and from those 
which fell into the sea, sprung Venus, ^ the goddess of love and beauty. 
U'ranus or Heaven being dethroned. Sat' urn, by the consent of his 
brethren, was permitted to reign in his stead, on condition that he 
would destroy all his male children : but Rhea his wife concealed 
from him the birth of Jupiter," Nep' tune,'' and Ph\to.^ 



1. Sat' urn, the youngest but most powerful of the Titans, called by the Greeks, Kronos, a 
word signifying "Time," is generally represented as an old man, bent by age and infirmity, 
liolding a scythe in his right hand, together with a serpent that bites its own tail, which is an 
emblem of time, and of the revolution of the year. In his left hand he has a child which he 
raises up as if to devoiu- it — as time devours all things. 

When Sat' urn was banished by his son Jupiter, he is said to have fled to Italy, where he 
employed himself in civilizing the barbarous manners of the people. His reign there was so 
beneficent and virtuous that mankind have called it the golden age. According to Hesiod, 
Sat' lu-n ruled over the Isles of the Blessed, at the end of the earth, by the " deep eddying 
ocean." 

2. The Furies were three goddesses, whose names signified the "Unceasing," the "Envier," 
and the " Blood-avenger." They are usualy represented with looks full of terror, each brand- 
ishing a torch in one hand and a scourge of snakes in the other. They torment guilty con- 
sciences, and punish the crimes of bad men. 

3. The Giants are represented as of uncommon stature, with strength proportioned to their 
gigantic size. The war of the Titans against Sat' urn, and that of the Giants against Jupiter, are 
very celebrated in mythology. It is believed that the Giants were nothing more than the ener- 
gies of nature personified, and that the war with Jupiter is an allegorical representation of some 
tremendous convulsion of nature in early times. 

4. In Grecian mythology, all the regions of earth and water were peopled with beautiful fe- 
male forms called nymphs, divided into various orders according to the place of their abode. 
The Melian nymphs were those which watched over gardens and flocks. 

5. Venus, the most beautifiU of all the goddesses, is sometimes represented as rising out of 
the sea, and wringing her locks, — sometimes drawn in a sea-siiell by Tritons — sea-deities that 
v/ere half fish and half human — and sometimes in a chariot drawn by swans. Swans, doves, 
and sparrows, were sacred to her. Her favorite plants were the rose and the myrtle. 

6. Jupiter, called the "father of men and gods," is placed at the head of the entire system of 
the universe. He is supreme over all : earthly monarchs derive their authority from him, and 
his will is fate. He is generally represented as majestic in appearance, seated on a throne, with 
a sceptre in one hand, and thunderbolts in the other. The eagle, which is sacred to him, is 
standing by his side. Regarding Jupiter as the surrounding ether, or atmosphere, the numer- 
ous fables of this monarch of the gods may be considered allegories v/hich typify the great gen- 
erative power of the universe, displaying itself in a variety of ways, and under the greatest 
diversity of forms. 

7. JVep' tune, the " Earth-shaker," and ruler of the sea, is second only to Jupiter in power. 
He is represented, like Jupiter, of a serene and majestic aspect, seated in a chariot made of a 
shell, bearing a trident in his right hand, and drawn by dolphins and sea-horses ; while the 
tritons, nymphs, and other sea-monsters, gambol around him. 

8. Pliito, called also Hades and Or' cus, the god of the lower world, is represented as a man 
of a stern aspect, seated on a throne of sulphur, from beneath which flow the rivers Lethe or 
Oblivion, Phleg' ethon, Cocy' tus, and Ach' eron. In one hand he holds a bident, or sceptre 
with two forks, and in the other the keys of hell. His queen, Pros' erpine, is sometimes seated 
by him. He is described by the poets as a being inexorable and deaf to supplication, and an 



Chap. IL] GRECIAN HISTORY. 25 

8. The Titans, informed that Sat' urn had saved his children, 
made war upon him and dethroned him ; but he was restored by his 
son Jupiter. Yet the latter afterwards conspired against his father, 
and after a long war with him and his giant progeny, which lasted 
ten full years, and in which all the gods took part, he drove Sat' urn 
from the kingdom, and then divided, between himself and his 
brothers Nep'tune and Pliito, the dominion of the universe, taking 
heaven as his own portion, and assig-ning the sea to Nep'tune, and 
to Pluto the lower regions, the abodes of the dead. With Jupiter 
and his brethren begins a new dynasty of the gods, being those, for 
the most part, whom the Greeks recognised and worshipped. 

9. Jupiter had several wives, both goddesses and mortals, but 
last of all he married his sister Juno,^ who maintained, permanently, 
the dignity of queen of the gods. The offspring of Jupiter were 
numerous, comprising both celestial and terrestrial divinities. The 
most noted of the former were Mer'cury,'' Mars,^ Apol'lo,* Yul'can,' 

object of aversion and hatred to both gods and men. From his reahns there is uo return, and 
all mankind, sooner or later, are sure to be gathered into his kingdom. 

As none of the goddesses would marry the stern and gloomy god, he seized Pros' orpine, tlio 
daughter of Ceres, while she was gathering flowers, and opening a passage through the earth, 
carried her to his abode, and made her queen of his dominions. 

1. Jttwo, a goddess of a dignified and matronly air, but haughty, jealous, and inexorable, is 
represented sometimes as seated on a throne, holding in one hand a pomegranate, and in the 
other a golden sceptre, with a cuckoo on its top ; and at others, as drawn ii) a chariot by pea- 
cocks, and attended by I' ris, the goddess of the rainbow. 

The many quarrels attributed to Jupiter and Jimo, are supposed to be physical allegories— 
Jiipiter representing the ether, or upper regions of the air, and Jiino the lower strata — hence 
their quarrels are the storms that pass over the earth: and the capricious and quick-chan.giiig 
temper of the spouse of Jove, is typical of the ever-varying changes that disturb our atmos- 
phere. 

2. Mer'curij, the confident, messenger, interpreter, and ambassador of the gods, was himself 
the god of eloquence, and the patron of orators, merchants, thieves and robbers, travellers and 
shepherds. He is said to have invented the lyre, letters, commerce, and gymnastic exercises. 
His thieving exploits are celebrated. He is usually represented with a cloak neatly arranged 
on his person, having a winged cap on his head, and winged sandals on his feet. In his iiand 
he bears his wand or staft; with wings at its extremity, and two serpents twined about it. 

3. Mars, the god of war, was of huge size and prodigious strength, and his voice was louder 
than that of ten thousand mortals. He is represented as a warrior of a severe and menacing 
air, dressed in the style of the Heroic Age, with a cuirass on, and a round Grecian shield on his 
arm. He is sometimes seen standing in a chariot, with Bellona his sister for a charioteer. 
Terror and Fear accompany him ; Discord, in tattered garments, goes before him, and Auger 
and Clamor follow. 

4. j^pol' lo, the god of archery, prophecy, and music, is represented in the perfection of manly 
strength and beauty, with hair long and curling, and bound behind his head ; his brows are 
wreathed with bay: sometimes he bears a lyre in his hand, and sometimes a bovi', with a gold- 
en quiver of arrows at his back. 

5. Vul' can was the fire-god of the Greeks, and the artificer of heaven. He was born lame, 
and his mother Jimo was so shocked at the sight that she flung him from Olym' pus. He 
forged the thunderbolts of Jiipiter, also the arms of gods and derai-gods. He is usually repr«>- 
sented as of ripe age, with a serious countenance and muscular form. His hair hangs in curls 



26 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

Diana,* and Miner' va.'* There were two other celestial divinities, 
Ceres^ and Ves'ta,'^ making, with Juno, Nep'tune, and Pluto, twelve 
in all. 

1 0. The number of other deities, not included among the celestials, 
was indefinite, the most noted of whom were Bac'chus,^ I'ris," Hebe,' 
the Muses," the Fates,^ and the Graces ;'° also Sleep, Dreams, and 
Death. There were also monsters, the offspring of the gods, pos- 
sessed of free will and intelligence, and having the mixed forms of 

on his shoulders. He generally appears at his anvil, in a short tunic, with his right ann bare, 
and sometimes with a pointed cap on his head. 

1. Diana, the exact counterpart of her brother Apol'lo, was queen of the woods, and the 
goddess of himting. She devotetl herself to perpetual celibacy, and her chief joy was to speed 
like a Dorian maid dver the hills, followed by a train of nymphs, in pursuit of the flying game. 
She is represented as a strong, active maiden, lightly clad, with a bow or himting spear in her 
hand, a quiver of arrows on her shoulders, wearing the Cretan hunting-shoes, and attended by 
a hound. 

2. Jilincj-' va, the goddess of wisdom and skill, and, as opposed to Mars, the patroness and 
teacher of just and scientific warfare, is said to have sprung, full anned, from the brain of Ju- 
piter. She is represented with a serious and thoughtful countenance ; her hair hangs in ring- 
lets over her shoulders, and a helmet covers her head: she wears a long tunic or mantle, and 
bears a spear in one hand, and an regis or shield, on which is a figure of the Go.-gon's head, in 
the other. 

3. Ceres was the goddess of grain and harvests. The most celebrated event in her history is 
the carrying oCf of her daughter Pros' eipine by Pliito, and the search of the goddess after her 
throughout the whole world. The form of Ceres is like that of Juno. She is represented bear- 
ing poppies and ears of corn in one hand, a lighted torch in the other, and wearing on her head 
a garland of poppies. She is also represented riding in a chariot drawn by dragons, and dis- 
tributing coni to the different regions of the earth. 

4. Kcs' ta, the virgin goddess who presided over the domestic hearth, is represented in a long 
flowing robe, with a veil on her head, a lamp in one hand, and a spear or javelin in the other. 
In every Grecian city an altar was dedicated to her, on which a sacred fire was kept constantly 
burning. In her temple at Rome the sacred fire was guarded by six priestesses, called the 
Vestal Virgins. 

5. Bao' chiLs, the god of wine, and the patron of dnmkenness and debaucherj-, is represented 
as an effeminate yoimg man, with long flowing hair, crowned with a garland of vine leaves, 
and generally covered with a cloak thrown loosely over his shoulders. In one hand he holds a 
goblet, and in tlic other clusters of grapes and a short dagger. 

6. T ris, the " golden winged," was the goddess of the rainbow, and special messenger of the 
king and queen of Olymjjus. 

7. The blooming Hfibr,\ho goddess of Youlh, was a kind of maid-servant who handed around 
the nectar at the banquets of the gods. 

8. The JMiises, nine in nuraber, were goddesses who presided over poetry, music, and all the 
liberal arts and sciences. They are thought to be personifications of the inventive powers of 
the mind, as displayed in tiia several arts. 

9. The Fates were three goddesses who presided over the destinies of mortals:— 1st, Clotho, 
who held tlie distaff; 2d, Lacli' esis, who spun each one's portion of the thread of life ; and 3d, 
At' i-opos, who cut off the thread Avith her scissors. 

"Clotho and Lach'esis, whose boundless sway, 
With At'ropos, both men and gods obey !"— Hksiod. 

10. Tlie Cmccs were three young and bea\itifal sisters, whose names signified, respectively, 
Splendor, Joy, and Pleasure. They are supposed to have been a symbolical representation of 
all that is beautiful and attractive. They are represented as dancing together, or standing with 
their arms entwined. 



Chap. II.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 2Y 

animals and men. Such were tlie Har'pies;^ the Gorgons;^ the 
winged horse Peg'asiis ; the fifty, or, as some say, the hmidred head- 
ed dog Cer'berus; the Cen'taurs, half men and half horses; the 
Ler'nean Hy'dra, a famous water serpent ; and Scyl'la and Charyb'- 
dis, fearful sea monsters, the one changed into a rock, and the other 
into a whirlpool on the coast of Sicily, — the dread of mariners. 
Many rebellious attempts were made by the gods and demi-gods to 
dethrone Jupiter ; but by his unparalleled strength he overcame all 
his enemies, and holding his court on mount Olym'pus,^ reigned su- 
preme god over heaven and earth. 

11. Such is the brief outline of Grecian mythology. The legends 
of the gods and goddesses are numerous, and some of them are of 
exceeding interest and beauty, while others shock and disgust us by 
the gross impossibilities and hideous deformities which they reveal. 
The great mass of the Grecian people appear to have believed that 
their divinities were real persons ; but their philosophers explained 
the legends concerning them as allegorical representations of general 
physical and moral truths. The Greek, therefore, instead of wor- 
shipping nature, worshipped the powers of nature personified. 

12. The earliest reliable information that we possess of the country 
denominated Greece, represents it in the possession of ^^^ earliest 
a number of rude tribes, of which the Pelas' gians were inhabitants 
the most numerous and powerful, and probably the most ^^ greeck. 
ancient. The name Pelas' gians was also a general one, under 
which were included many kindred tribes, such as the DoF opes, Cha- 
ones, and Grce'ci; but still the origin and extent of the race are in- 
volved in much obscurity. 

13. Of the early character of the Pclas' gians, and of the degree 
of civilization to which they had attained before the reputed found- 
ing of Ar'gos, we have unsatisfactory and conflicting accounts. On 
the one hand they are represented as no better than the rudest bar- 
barians, dwelling in caves, subsisting on reptiles, herbs, and wild 
fruits, and strangers to the simplest arts of civilized life. Other and 
more reliable traditions, however, attribute to them a knowledge of 

1. The Har' pies were three-winged monsters who had female faces, and the bodies, wings, 
and claws of birds. They are supposed to be personifications of the terrors of the storm— de- 
mons riding upon the wind, and directing its blasts. 

2. The Gur' gons were three hideous female forms, who turned to stone all whom they fixed 
their eyes upon. They are supposed to be personifications of the terrors of the sea. 

3. Olymptis is a celebrated mountain of Greece, near the north-eastern coast of Thessaly. To 
the highest summit in the range the name Olympus was specially applied by the poets. It was 
the fabled residence of the gods; and hence the name "Olym'pus" was frequently used for 
" Heaven." 



28 ANCIEIST HISTORY. [Part I. 

agriculture, and some little acquaintance with navigation ; while 
there is a strong probability that they were the authors* of those huge 
structures commonly called Cyclopean/ remains of which are still 
visible in many parts of Greece and Italy, and on the western coast 
of Asia Minor. '^ 

14. Ar'gos,^ the capital of Ar'golis,'* is generally considered the 
T,r T,^ T. most ancient city of Grreece ; and its reputed foundins; 

IV. FOREIGN J 1 }. o 

SETTLERS IN by In' aclius, a son of the god Oceanus,^ 1856 years be- 
GREECE. ^Qj.g ^Y\Q Christian era, is usually assigned as the period 
of the commencement of Grrecian history. But the massive Cyclo- 
pean walls of Ar' gos evidently show the Pelas' gic origin of the place, 
in opposition to- the traditionary Phoenician origin of In' achus, 
whose very existence is quite problematical. And indeed the ac- 
counts usually given of early foreign settlers in Greece, who planted 
colonies there, founded dynasties, built cities, and introduced a 

1. The Cyclopean structures were works of extraordinary magnitude, consisting of walls and 
circular buildings, constructed of immense blocks of stone placed upon each other "without 
cement, but so nicely fitted as to form the most solid masonry. The most remarkable are cer- 
tain walls at Tir'yns, or Tiryn'thus, and the circular tower of At' reus at Myc6na, both cities 
of Ar'golis in Greece. The structure at Mycena is a hollow cone fifty feet in diameter, and aa 
many in height, formerly terminating in a point ; but the central stone and a few others have 
been removed. The Greek poets ascribed these structures to the three Cyclupes BrSntes, Sfcr'- 
opes, and ./})•' ges, fabulous one-eyed giants, whose employment was to fabricate the thunder- 
bolts of Jupiter. (See Cyclopes, p. 22.) 

2. ^sia Minor, (or Lesser Asia,) now embraced mostly in the Asiatic portion of Turkey, 
comprised that western peninsula of Asia which lies between the waters of the Mediterranean 
and the Black Sea. {See Map, No. IV.) 

3. Ar' gos, a city of southern Greece, and anciently the capital of the kingdom of Ar'golis, is 
situated on the western bank of the river In' achus, two miles from the bottom of the Gulf of 
Ar' gos, and on the western side of a plain ten or twelve miles in length, and four or five in 
width. The eastern side of the plain is dry and barren, and here v.'ere situated Tlr' yns, from 
which Her' cules departed at the commencement of his " labors," and Myc6na, the royal city 
of Agamem' non. The immediate vicinity of Ar' gos was injured by excess of moisture. Here, 
near the Gulf, was the marsh of Ler' na, celebrated for the Ler' nean Hy' dra, which Her'culcs 
slew. 

But few vestiges of the ancient city of Ar' gos are now to be seen. The elevated rock on 
which stood the ancient citadel, is now surmounted by a modern castle. The town suffered 
much during the revolutionary struggle between the Greeks and Turks. The present popula- 
tion is about 3,000. (See Map, No. I.) 

4. Ar' golis, a country of Southern Greece, is properly a neck of land, deriving its name from 
its capital city, Ar' gos, and extending in a south-easterly direction from Arcadia fifty-four miles 
into the sea, where it terminates in the promontory of Scil' laeum. Among the noted places in 
Ar' golis have been mentioned Ar' gos, Myc6n?e, Tlr' yns, and the Ler' nean marsh. JSTemra, 
in the north of Ar' golis, was celebrated for the J^Temean lion, and for the games instituted there 
in honor of Nep' tune. JSTaiiplia, or Napoli di Romani, which was the post and arsenal of 
ancient Ar' gos during the best period of Grecian history, is now a flourishing, enterprising, 
and beautiful town of about 16,000 inhabitants. (See Map, No. I.) 

5. Oceanus. (See "The Tfta/iis," p.22) /rt'ac/zsts was probably only a river, personified into 
the founder of a Grecian state. 

a. Thirwall's Greece i. p. 52; Aathon's Classical Diet., articles rdaagi m\d. Ar' gos ; also 
Heeren's Manual of Ancient History, p. 119. 



Chap. II.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 29 

knowledge of the arts unknown to the ruder natives, must be taken 
with a great degree of abatement. 

15. Cecrops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a colony from 
the Delta to Greece about the year 1556 B. C. Two years later, 
proceeding to At' tica,^ which had been desolated by a deluge a cen- 
tury before, during the reign of Og' yges,'^ he is said to have founded, 
on the Cecropian rock, a new city, which he called Athens,^ in honor 
of the Grecian goddess Athe' na, whom the liomans called Miner' va. 
To Cecrops has been ascribed the institution of marriage, and the 
introduction of the first elements of Grecian civilization ; yet, not 
only has the Egyptian origin of Cecrops been doubted, but his very 
existence has been denied,'' and the whole story of his Egyptian col- 
ony, and of the arts which he is said to have established, has been 
attributed, with much show of reason, to a homesprung Attic fable. 

16. As a part of the history of Cecrops, it is represented that in 
his days the gods began to choose favorite spots among the dwellings 
of men for their residences ; or, in other words, that particular 
deities began to be worshipped with especial homage in j)articular 
cities ; and that when Miner' va and Nep' tune claimed the homage 
of At' tica, Cecrops was chosen umpire of the dispute. Nep' tune 
asserted that he had appropriated the country to himself before it 
had been claimed by Miner' va, by planting his trident on the rock 
of the Acrop' olis of Athens ; and, as proof of his claim, he pointed 

1. JIt' tica, the most celebrated of the Grecian States, and the least proportioned, in extent, 
of any on the face of the earth, to its fame and importance in the history of mankind, is situ- 
ated at the south-eastern extremity of Northern Greece, having an extent o6 about forty-five 
miles from east to west, and an average breadth of about thirty-five. As the soil of At' tica was 
mostly rugged, and the surface consisted of barren hills, or plains of little extent, its produce 
was never sufficient to supply the wants of its inhabitants, who were therefore compelled to 
look abroad for subsistence. Thus the barrenness of the Attic soil rendered the people indus- 
trious, and filled them with that spirit of enterprise and activity for which they were so dis- 
tinguished. Secure in her sterility, the soil of At' tica never tempted the cupidity of her neigh- 
bors, and she boasted that the race of her inhabitants had ever been the same. Among the 
advantages of At' tica may be reckoned the purity of its air, the fragrance of its shrubs, and 
the excellence of its fruits, together with its form and position, which m.arked it out, in an emi- 
nent degree, for commercial pursuits. Its most remarkable plains are those of Athens and 
Mar' athon, and its principal rivers the Cephis' sus and Ilys' sus. ( See Map, No. I.) 

2. Og' ijires is fabled to have been the first king of Athens and of Thebes also. It is also said 
that in the time of Og'yges happened a deluge, which preceded that of Deucalion ; and Og'yges 
is said to have been the only person saved when Greece was covered with water. 

3. Athens. {SeeJIapNo. II. aiul description.) 

a. "Notwithstanding the confidence with which this story (that of Cecrops) has been repeated 
in modern times, the Egyptian origin of Cecrops is extremely doubtful."— T/uVwa/^ i. p. 53. 
*' The story of his leading a colony from Egypt to Athens is entitled to no credit."—" The whole 
series of Attic kings who are said to have preceded Theseus, including perhaps Th(5seus himself, 
are probably mere fictions." — MnlhuH''s Clas. Diet., article " Cecrops.'''' 



30 ANCIEI^T HISTORY. [Part I. 

to the trident standing there erect, and to the salt spring which had 
issued from the fissure in the cliff, and which still continued to 
flow. On the other hand, Miner' va pointed to the olive which she 
had planted long ago, and which still grew in native luxuriance by 
the side of the fountain which, she asserted, had been produced at a 
later period by the hand of Nep' tune. Cecrops himself attested the 
truth of her assertion, when the gods, according to one account, but, 
according to another, Cecrops himself, decided in favor of Miner' va, 
who then became the tutelary deity of Athens, 

17. Cran' aus, the successor of Cecrops on the list of Attic kings, 
was probably a no less fabulous personage than his predecessor ; and 
of Amphic' tyon, the third on the list, who is said to have been the 
founder of the celebrated Amphictyonic council, our knowledge is as 
limited and as doubtful as of the former two.^ About half a century 
after the time of Cecrops, another Egyptian, by name Dan' aus, is 
said to have fled to Greece with a family of fifty daughters, and to 
have established a second Egyptian colony in the vicinity of Ar' gos ; 
and about the same time, Cad' mus,^ a Phoenician, is reported to have 
led a colony into Boeotia,^ bringing with him the Phoenician alphabet, 
the basis of the Grecian, and to have founded Cad' mea, which after- 
wards became the citadel of Thebes.^ 

1. There is no good reason for believing that Cad' miis was the founder of Thebes, as his his- 
tory is evidently fabulous, although there can be little doubt that the alphabet attributed to 
him was originally brought from Phoenicia. (See Thirwall,i. p. 107.) We may therefore ven- 
ture to dismiss the early theory of Cad' mus, and seek a Grecian origin for the name of the sup- 
posed founder of Thebes. 

2. Baotia, lying north-west of At' tica, is a high and well-watered region, mostly surrounded 
by mountain ranges, of which the most noted summits are those of Hel' icon and Cithae' ron 
in the south-west. Boeotia is divided into two principal basins or plains, that of Cephis' sus in 
the north-west, watered by the river of the same name, and containing the lake of Copals ; and 
that of Thebes in the south-east, watered by the river Asopus. As many of the streams and 
lakes of Boeotia find their outlet to the sea by subterranean channels, marshes abound, and the 
atmosphere is damp, foggy, oppressive, and in many places mihealthy. The fertility of Boeotia, 
however, is such, that it has always an abundant crop, tliough elsewhere famine should pre- 
vail. Boeotia was the most populous of all the Grecian states ; but the very productiveness of 
the country seems to have depressed the intellectual and moral character of the BoRotians, and 
to have justified the ridicule which their more enterprising neighbors of barren At' tica heaped 
upon them. (Sec Map, No. I.) 

3. Thebes, the ancient capital of Boeotia, was situated near the small river (or brook) Is- 
ra6nus, about five miles south of the lake Hyl'ica. The city was surroimded by high walls, 
which had seven gUles, and it contained many magnificent temples, theatres, gymnasiums, and 
other public edifices, adorned with statues, paintings, and other works of art. In the most 
flourishing period of its history, the population of the city amounted to perhaps 50,000. The 
modern town of Thebes, (called Thiva,) contains a population of about 5,000 souls, and is'confined 
mostly to the eminence occupied by the Acropolis, or citadel, of the ancient city. Prodigious 
ramparts and artificial mounds appear outside of the town : it is surromided by a deep fosse ; 

a. " There can be scarcely any reasonable doubt that this Amphic' tyon is a merely fictitioua 
person,"— TA?VjoaW, i. p. 149. 



Chaf. IL] 



GRECIAN HISTORY. 31 



18. These and many other accounts of foreign settlers in Greece 
during this early period of Grecian history, are so interwoven with 
the absurdest fables, or, rather, deduced from them, that no reliance 
can be placed upon their authenticity. Still, these traditions are 
not without their value, for although the particular persons men- 
tioned may have had no existence, yet the events related can hardly 
have been without some historical foundation. It is probable that 
after the general diffusion of the Pelas' gic tribes over Greece, and 
while the western regions of Asia and northern Africa were in an 
unsettled state, various bands of flying or conquering tribes^ found 
their way to the more peaceful shores of Greece through the islands 
of the M' gean,' bringing with them the arts and knowledge of the 
countries which they had abandoned. It is thus that we can satis- 
factorily account for that portion of Grecian mythology which bears 
evident marks of Phoenician origin, and for that still greater por- 
tion of the religious notions and practices, objects and forms of Gre- 
cian worship, which, according to Herod' otus, were derived from the 
Egyptians. 

19. At the time that colonies from the East are supposed to 
have been settling in Greece, a people called the Hel- y. the 
le?ies, but whether a Pelas' gic tribe or otherwise is un- Hellenes. 
certain, first appeared in the south of Thes' saly,^ about 1384 years 
before the Christian era, according to the received chronology, and 

and remains of the old walls are still to be seen; but the sacred and public edifice? of the an- 
cient city have wholly disappeared. Previous to the late Greek Revolution the city had some 
handsome mosques, a bazaar shaded by gigantic palm-trees, and extensive gardens, but these 
were almost wholly destroyed by the casualities of war. (.See Map, No. T.) 

1. The JE-^ean Sea is that part of the Mediterranean lying between Greece and Asia Slinor, 
now called the Grecian Archipelago. (See Map, No. III.) 

2. T/ies- saly, now included in Turkey in Europe, was bounded on the north by the Cambu- 
nian mountains, terminating, on the east, in the loftier heights of Olympus, and separating 
Thes' saly from Macedonia ; on the east by the M' gean Sea, which is skirted by ranges of Ossa 
and Pelion; on the south by the Mallan gulf and the mountain chain of CEta; and on the 
west by the chain of Pindus, which separated it from Epirus. In the southern part of this ter- 
ritory, between the mountain chains of CEta and Othrys, is the long and narrow valley of the 
river Sperchius, which, though considered as a part of Thes' saly, forms a separate region, 
widely distinguislied from the rest by its physical features. Between the Othrys and the Cam- 
bunian mountains lies the great basin of Thes' saly, the largest and richest plain in Greece, en- 
compassed on all sides by a mountain barrier, broken only at the north-east corner by a deep 
and narrow cleft, which parts Ossa from Olympus-the defile so renowned in history as the 
pass, and in poetry aathe Fale of Tern' pe. Through this narrow glen, of about five miles in 
length, the Pencus, the principal river of Thes' saly, finds its way to the sea; and an ancienli 
legend asserts that the waters of the Peneus and its tributaries covered the whole basin of 
Thes' saly, until the arm of Her' cules, or, as some assert, the trident of Nep' tune, rent asunder 
the gorge of Tem'pe, and thus afforded a passage to the pent-up streams. Herod' otus says, 
"To me the separation of these mountains appears to have been the effect of an earthquake/' 
(See Map, No. I.) 



•^2 ANCIENT HISTORY. _ [Part I. 

gradually diffusing tliemselves over the whole country, became, "by 
their martial spirit, and active, enterprising genius, the ruling class, 
and impressed new features upon the G-recian character. The Hel- 
lenes gave their name to the population of the whole peninsula, al- 
though the term Grecians was the name applied to them by the 
Romans. 

20. In accordance with the Grr eek custom of attributing the origin 
of iljeJr tribes or nations to some remote mythical ancestor, Hel'len, 
a son of the fabulous Deucalion, is represented as the father of the 
Ilel' lenic nation. His three sons were JE' olus, Dorus, and Xi'ithus, 
from the two former of wliom are represented to have descended the 
JSolians and Dorians ; and from Achiie' us and I' on, sons of Xii- 
thus, the AcJlcb' ans and lonians^ — the four tribes into which the 
Hel' lenic or Grecian nation was for many centuries divided, and 
which were distinguished from each other by many peculiarities of 
language and institutions." HeF len Is said to have left his kingdom 
to iE' olus, his eldest son ; and the ^olian tribe was the one that 
spread the most widely, and that long exerted the greatest influence 
in the affairs of the nation, although at a later period it was surpassed 
by the fame and power of the Dorians and lonians. 

21. The period from the time of the first appearance of the Hel- 
VI. THE lenes in Thes' saly, to the return of the Greeks from the 

iiEiioic AGE. expedition against Troy, is usually called the Heroic 
Age. Our only knowledge of G-recian history during this period is 
derived from numerous marvellous legends of wars, expeditions, and 
heroic achievements, which possess scarcely the slightest evidence of 
historical authenticity ; and which, even if they can be supposed to 
rest on a basis of fact, would be scarcely deserving of notice, as being 
unattended with any important or lasting consecjuences, were it not 
for the light which they throw upon the subject of Grecian mythol- 
ogy, and the gradual fading away, vdiich they exhibit, of fiction, in 
the dawn of historic truth. The most important of these legends are 
those which recount the Labors of Her' eules^ and the exploits of the 

1. Iler' cules, a celebrated hero, is reported to have been a son of the god Ji'ipiter and ATc- 
mena. While yet an infant, Jiino, moved by jealousy, sent two serpents to devour him; but 
the child boldly seized them in both his hands, and squeezed them to death. By an oatli of 
Jupiter, imposed upon him by the artifice of J u no, Ilcr' cules was made subser\icnt, for twelve 
years, to the will of Eurys' theus, his enemy, and bound to obey all his commands. Eurys' 
theus commanded him to achieve a number of enterprises, the most diflicult and arduous ever 
known, generally called the " twelve labors of Hercules." But the favor of the gods had com- 

a. "We believe Hel' len, JE' olus, Dorus, Achfe'us,and I' on, to bo merely fictitious persons, 
repi-esentatives of the races which bore their names."— T/t/V7co//,i. p. GG. 



Chap. II.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 33 

Athenian Theseus;^ the events of the Argonautic expedition;'^ of 
the Theban and Ar' golic war of the Seven Captains ;^ and of the 
succeeding v/ar of the Epig' onoi, or descendants of the survivors, in 

plelely armed him for the undertaking. He had received a sword from Mer'cury, a bow 
from Apol' lo, a golden breastplate from Vul' can, horses from Nep' tune, a robe from Miner' va ; 
and he himself cut his club from the Nemean wood. Vv^e have merely room to enumerate his 
twelve labors, without describing them. 

1st. He strangled the N6mean lion, which ravaged the country near Myc6n?p, and ever after 
clothed himself with its skin. 2d. He destroyed the Lernean hydra, a water-serpent, which 
had nine heads, eight of them mortal, and one immortal. 3d. He brought into the presence of 
Eurys' theus a stag, famous for its incredible swiftness and golden horns. 4th. He brought to 
Mycente the wild boar of Eryman' thus, and during this expedition slew two of the Centaurs, 
monsters who were half men and half horses. 5th. He cleansed the Augean stables in one 
day, by changing the courses of the rivers Al'pheus and P6neus. ("To cleanse the Augean 
stables" has become a common proverb, and is applied to any undertaking where the object 
is to remove a mass of moral corruption, the accumulation of which renders the task almost 
impossible.") 6lh. He destroyed the carnivorous birds which ravaged the country near tlic 
Lalce Stymphalus in Arcadia. 7. He brought alive into Peloponnesus a prodigious wild bull 
which ravaged the island of Crete. 8th. He brought from Thrace the mares of Dioraede, wliicli 
fed on human flesh. 9th. He obtained the famous girdle of Hippol' yta, queen of the Amazons. 
10th. He killed, in an island of the Atlantic, the monster G6ryon, who had the bodies of three 
men imited, and brought away his purple oxen. 11th. He oblaiued from the garden of the 
Hesper' ides the golden apples, and slew the dragon whicli guarded them. 12th. He went 
down to the lower regions, and brought upon earth the three-headed dog Cer' berus. 

1. To Theseus, who is stated to have become king of Athens, are attributed many exploits 
similar to those performed by Her' cules, and he even shared in some of the enterprises of the 
latter. By his wise laws Th6seus is said to have laid the principal foundation of Athenian 
greatness ; but his name, which signifies the Orderer, or Regulator, seems to indicate a period 
in Grecian history, rather than an individual. 

2. The Arn-onautic Expedition is said, in the popular legend, to have been midertaken by 
Jason and fifty-four of the most renowned heroes of Greece, among whom were Theseus and 
Her' cules, for the recovery of a «■ olden fleece which had been deposited in the capital of Col'- 
chis, a province of Asia Minor, bordering on the eastern extremity of the Euxine. The adven- 
turers sailed from lol' cos in the ship Ar' go, and during the voyage met with many adventures. 
Having arrived at Col' chis, they would have been unsuccessful in the object of their expedi- 
tion had not the king's daughter, Medea, who was an enchantress, Allien in love with Jason, 
and defeated the plans of her father for his destruction. After a long return voyage, filled with 
marvellous adventures, most of tiie Argonauts reached Greece in safety, where Her' cules, in 
honor of the expedition, instituted the Olym' pic games. 

Some have supposed this to have been a piratical expedition ; others, tliat it was undertaken 
for the purpose of discovery, or to secure some commercial establishment on the shores of the 
Euxine, while others have regarded the legend as wholly fabulous. Says Grote, " I repeat the 
opinion long ago expressed, that the process of dissecting the story, in search of a basis of fact, 
is one altogether fruitless." — Orote^s Hist, of Greece, 1. 243. 

3. The following are said to have been the circumstances of the Theban and ./Ir' goJic tear. 
After the death of CE' dipus, king of Thebes, it was agreed between his two sons, Et^ocles and 
Polynices, that they should reign alternately, each a ySr. EtSocles, however, the elder, 
after his first year had expired, refused to give up the crown to his brother, when the latter, 
fleeing to Ar' gos, induced Adras' tus, king of that place, to espouse his cause. Adras' tus 
marched an army against Thebes, led by himself and seven captains; but all the leaders -were 
slain before the city, and the war ended by a single combat between Et6ocles and Polynices, 
in which both brothers fell. This is said to have happened twenty-seven years before the 
Trojan war. Ten years later the war was renewed by the Epiff' onoi, descendants of those who 
were killed in the first Th6ban war. Some of the Grecian states espoused the cause of the 
Ar' gives, and others aided the Thebans ; but in the end Thebes was abandoned by its inhabit- 
ants, and plundered by the Ar' gives. 

3 . 



34 ANCIENT HTSTOTiy. [Part I. 

which Thebes is said to have been plundered by the confederate 
Greeks. 

22. Of these events, the Argonautic expedition has usually been 
thought of more importance than the rest, as having been conducted 
against a distant country, and as presenting some valid claims to 
our belief in its historical reality. But we incline to the opinion, 
that both the hero and the heroine of the legend are purely ideal 
personages connected with Grecian mythology, — that Jason was per- 
haps no other than the Samothracian^ god or hero Jasion,^ the pro- 
tector of mariners, and that the fable of the expedition itself is a 
poetic fiction which represented the commercial and piratical voy- 
ages that began to be made, about this period, to the eastern shores of 
the Euxine.^ It is not improbable that voyages similar to that rep- 
resented to have been made by the Argonauts, or, perhaps, naval 
expeditions like those attributed to Minos,^ the Cretan* prince 
and lawgiver, may first have led to hostile rivalries between the 
inhabitants of the Asiatic and Grecian coasts, and thus have been 
the occasion of the first conflict between the Greeks and the Tro- 
jans.^ 

23. The Trojan war, rendered so celebrated in early Grecian his- 

1. Samotltrdcc (the Thracian Samos, now Saraothraki,) is an island iu the northern part of 
the M' gean Sea, about thirty miles south of the Thracian coast. It was celebrated for the mys- 
teries of the goddess Cyb' ele, whose priests ran about with dreadful cries and bowlings, beat- 
ing om timbrels, clashing cymbals, and cutting their flesh with knives. {See Map No. III.) 

2. The Euxitic (Pon'tus Euxinus) is now called tlie Black Sea. It lies between the south- 
western provinces of Russia in Europe, and Asia Minor. Its greatest length, from east to west, 
is upwards of 700 miles, and its greatest breadth about 400 miles. Its waters are only about 
one-seventh part less salt than the Atlantic— a fact attributable to the saline nature of the bot- 
tom, and of the northern coast. The Euxine is deep, and singularly free from rocks and shoals. 
{See Map No. V.) 

3. Minus is said, in the Grecian legends, to have been a son of Jupiter, from whom ho 
learned those laws which he delivered unto men. It is said that he was the first among the 
Greeks who possessed a navy, and that he conquered and colonized several islands, and finally 
perished in an expedition against Sicily. Some regard Minos simply as the concentration of 
that spirit of order, which, about his time, began to exhibit, in the island of Create, a regular 
Bystem of laws and government. He seems to be intermediate between the periods of mythol- 
ogy and history, combining, in his person, the characteristics of both. 

4. Ci-ete (now called Candia) is a large mountainous island in the Mediterranean Sea, 80 miles 
south-east from Cape Matapan in (^ece — 160 miles in length from east to west, with a breadth 
averaging about 20 miles. Crete was the reputed birth-place of Jupiter, "king of gods and 
men." The laws of Minos are said to have served as a model for those of Lycur'gus; and the 
wealth, number, and flourishing condition of the Cretan cities, are repeatedly referred to by 
Homer. (See Map No. III.) 

a. Thirwall's Greece, i. 77-79. 

b. According to Herod' otus, i. 2, 3, the abduction of Hel' en, the cause of the Trojan war, was 
In retaliation of the abduction of Medea by Jason in the Argonautic expedition. But Herod- 
otus goes farther back, and attributes to the Phoenicians the first cause of contention between 
the Asiatics and the Grecians, in carrying away from Ar'goa, lo, a priestess of Jimo. 



Chap. II. j GRECIAN HISTORY. 35 

tory by the poems of Horner,^ is represented to have been under- 
taken about the year 1173 before the Christian era, by the confed- 
erate princes of Greece, against the city and kingdom of Troy,^ 
situated on the western coast of Asia Minor. The alleged causes 
of this war, according to the Grecian legend, were the following : 
Her en, the most beautiful woman of her age, and daughter of Tyn'- 
darus, king of Lacedae'mon, was sought in marriage by all the 
princes of Greece ; when Tyn' darus, perplexed with the difficulty of 
choosing one without displeasing all the rest, being advised by the 
sage Ulys' ses, bound the suitors by an oath that they would approve 
of the uninfluenced choice of Hel' en, and would unite together to 
defend her person and character, if ever any attempts were made to 
carry her off from her husband. Menelaus became the choice of 
Her en, and soon after, on the death of Tyn' darus, succeeded to the 
vacant throne of Lacedse' mon.^ 

24. After three years, Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, visited 
the court of Menelaus, and taking advantage of the temporary ab- 
sence of the latter, he corrupted the fidelity of Hel' en, whom he 
induced to flee with him to Troy. Menelaus, returning, prepared to 
avenge the outrage. He assembled the princes of Greece, who, 
combining their forces under the command of Agamem' non, brother 
of Menelaus, sailed with a great armament to Troy, and after a siege 
of ten years finally took the city by stratagem, and razed it to the 
ground. (1183 B. C.) Most of the inhabitants were slain or taken 
prisoners, and the rest were forced to become exiles in distant 
lands. 



1. Homer, the greatest and earliest of the poets, often styled ih^^ father of poetry, was prob- 
ably an Asiatic Greek, although seven Grecian cities contended for tlie honor of his birth. No 
circumstances of his life are known with any certaintj^ except that he was a wandering poet, 
and blind. The principal works of Homer are the Iliad and the Od' ysseij, — the former of 
which relates the circumstances of the Trojan war; and the latter, the history and wanderings 
of Ulys' ses after the fall of Troy, 

2. Troy, the scene of the battles described in the Iliad, stood on a rising ground between the 
email river Simois (nov/ the Dumbrek) and the Seaman' der, (now the Mendere,) on the coast 
of Asia Minor, near the entrance to the Hel' lespont. New Ilium was afterwards built on the 
spot now believed to be the site of the ancient city, about three miles from the sea. (See Map 
No. III. and No. IV.) 

3. Lacedcc' mon, or Spar' ta, the ancient capital of Laconia, was situated in a plain of con- 
siderable extent, embracing the greater part of Laconia, bounded on the west by the mountain 
chain of Tayg6tus, and on the east by the less elevated ridge of mount Thornax, between whioh 
flows the Eurotas, on the east side of the town. In early times Spar' ta was witliout walls, Ly- 
cur'gus having inspired his countrymen with the idea, that the real defence of a town consisted 
solely in the valor of its citizens ; but fortifications were erected after Sparta became subject 
to despotic rulers. The remains of Spar' ta are about tv/o miles north-east of the modern town 
of Mistro. {See Map No. I.) 



S3 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

25. Such is, in brief, the commonly-received account of the Tro- 
jan war, stripped of the incredible but glowing fictions with which 
the poetic genius of Homer has adorned it. But although the 
reality of some such war as this can hardly be questioned, yet the 
causes which led to it, the manner in which it was conducted, and its 
issue, being gathered, even by Homer himself, only from traditional 
legends, which served as the basis of other compositions besides 
the Iliad, are involved in an obscurity which we cannot hope to 
penetrate. The accounts of Hel' en are various and contradictory, 
and so connected with fabulous beings — with gods and goddesses — as 
clearly to assign her to the department of mythology ; while the 
real events of the war, if such ever occurred, can hardly be separated 
from the fictions with which they are interwoven.^ 

26. But although little confidence can be placed in the reality of 
the persons and events mentioned in Homer's poetic account of the 
siege of Troy, yet there is one kind of truth from which the poet 
can hardly have deviated, or his writings would not have been so ac- 
ceptable as they appear to have been to his cotemporaries ; — and 
that is, a faithful portraiture of the government, usages, religious no- 
tions, institutions, manners, and general condition of Grecian society, 
during the heroic age.^- 

!. Thus the most ancient account of Hel'en is, that she was a daughter of the god Ju- 
piter, hatched from the egg of a swan ; and Homer speaks of her in the Iliad as " begotten 
of Jupiter." When only seven years of age, such were her personal attractions, that Th6seus, 
king of Athens, having become enamored of her, carried her off from a festival at which he 
saw her dancing ; but her brothers recovered her by force of arms, and restored her to her 
family. After her marriage with Menelaus, it is said that Jupiter, plotting a war for the pur- 
pose of ridding Ihe earth of a portion of its overstocked inhabitants, contrived that the beauty 
of Her en should involve the Greeks and Trojans in hostilities. At a banquet of the gods. Dis- 
cord, by the direction of Jupiter, threw into the assembly a golden apple, on which was in- 
scribed, "The apple for the Fair one," (Ti/ KaXrj to /xr/Xo»/,) or, as in Virgil, Pulcherrima me 
habeto, "Let the most beautiful have me." The goddesses Jiino, Miner' va, and Venus, claim- 
ing it, Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, was made the arbiter. He awarded the prize to 
Venus, who had promised him the beautiful Hel'en in marriage, if he would decide in her 
favor. Venus (the goddess of love and beauty) caused Paris and Hel' en to become mutually 
enamored, and afterwards aided the Trojans in the war that followed. Homer represents tho 
heroes as performing prodigies of valor, shielded and aided by the gods ; and the gods them- 
selves as mingling in the strife, and taking part with the combatants. The goddess Miner' va, 
an unsuccessful competitor for the prize v/hich Paris awarded to her rival Venus, planned the 
stratagem of the wooden horse, which concealed within its side a band of Greeks, who, borne 
with it into the city, were thus enabled to open the gates to their confederates without. 

a. " Homer was regarded even by the ancients as of historical authority."— " Tnith was his 
object in his accounts and descriptions, as far as it can be the object of a poet, and even in a 
greater degree than was necessary, when he distinguishes the earlier and later times or ages. He 
is the best source of information respecting the heroic age."— Zfecren'5 Politics of Greece, p. 82. 



Chap. IIJ EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 37 



COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 

1. During the period of early Grecian history which we have 
passed over in the present chapter, our knowledge of the cotempo- 
rary history of other nations is exceedingly limited. Rome had not 
yet a beginning : — all Europe, except the little Grreeian peninsula, 
was in the darkness of barbarism : in Central Western Asia we in- 
deed suppose there existed, at this time, large cities, and the flour- 
ishing empires of Assyria and Babylon; but from them we can 
gather no reliable historic annals. In north-eastern Africa, indeed, 
the Egyptian empire had already attained the meridian of its glory ; 
but of the chronological detail of Egyptian history during this pe- 
riod we know comparatively nothing. What is known relates prin- 
cipally to the conquests of the renowned Sesos' tris, an Egyptian 
monarch, who, as nearly as can be ascertained, was cotemporary 
with Otli' uiel, the first judge of Israel, and with Cecrops, the sup- 
posed founder of Athens, although some modern authors place his 
reign a hundred years later.^ This monarch is said to have achieved 
many brilliant conquests as the lieutenant of his father. After he 
came to the throne he made vast preparations for the conquest of the 
world, and raised an army which is said to have numbered six hun- 
dred thousand foot and twenty-four thousand horse, besides twenty- 
seven thousand armed chariots. He conquered Lib' ya^ and Ethiopia,^ 
after which, entering Asia, he overran Arabia, subdued the Assyrians 
and Medes, and even led his victorious hosts bej^ond the Ganges :^ 

1. Lib' ya is the name which the Greek and RonKin poets gave to Africa. In a more re- 
stricted sense, however, the name was applied to that part of Africa, bordering on the Mediter- 
ranean, which lies between Egypt on the east and Tripoli on the west,— the most important 
part of which territory is embraced in the present Barca. 

2. Ancient Ethiopia comprised, principally, the present countries of Nubia and Abyssinia, 
south of Egypt. 

3. The Ganges, the sacred river of the Hindoos, flowing south-east through the nortli- 

a. The era of the accession of Sesos' tris, may be placed at LWo B. C. ; that of 0th' niel at 
15G4; and the supposed founding of Athens at 1558,— the latter two in accordance with Dr. 
Hales. In Rollin the date for Sesos' tris is 1491 ; Hereen "about 1500" ; Paissell's Egypt, 1308; 
Mure, " between 1400 and 1410"; GUddon's Egypt, 1565; and Champolion Figeac (making 
Sesos' tris the same as Ramses IV., at the head of the 19th dynasty), 1473. Eusebius, followed 
by Usher and Playfair, supposes that Scsos' tris was the immediate successor of the Pharaoh who 
was drowned ia the Red Sea ; while Marsham, followed by Newton, attempts to identify him 
with the Shishak of Scripture who invaded Judea— a difference, according to various systems 
of chronology, of from 500 to 800 years. Mr. Bryant endeavors to prove that no such person 
ever existed. 

Since the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, however, the principal ground of dispute on this 
subject among the learned, appears to be, whether the Sesos' tris so renowned in history Avas 
the same as Ramses III., the fourteenth king of the 18th dynasty, or the same as Ramses IV., the 
first king of the 19th dynasty, there being a difference between tlie two of about a hundred years. 



BS ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

he is also said to have passed over into Europe, and to have ravaged 
the territories of the Thracians and the Scythians,^ when scarcity of 
provisions stopped the progress of his conquests. That the fame of 
his deeds might long survive him, he erected columns in the countries 
through which he passed, on which was inscribed, " Sesos' tris, king 
of kings, and lord of lords, subdued this country by the power of his 
arms." Some of these columns were still to be seen in Asia Minor 
in the days of Herod' otus. 

3. The deeds and triumphs of Sesos' tris are also wrought, in 
sculpture and in painting, in numerous temples, and on the most 
celebrated obelisks, from Ethiopia to Lower Egypt. At Ipsamboul,""' 
in Nubia, is a temple cut out of the solid rock, whose front or fa- 
<^ade is supported by four colossal figures of exquisite workmanship, 
each sixty feet high, all statues of Sesos' tris, the faces of which bear 
a perfect resemblance to the figures of the same king at Mem' phis. 
The walls of the temple are covered with numerous sculptures on his- 
torical subjects, representing the conquests of this prince in Africa. 
Among them are processions of the conquered nations, carrying the 
riches of their country and laying them at the feet of the conqueror ; 
and even the wild animals of the desert — antelopes, apes, giraffes, 
and ostriches — are led in the triumphs of the Egyptians. 

4. Were it not for the many similar monumental evidences of the 
reign of this monarch, which have been recently discovered, corrobo- 
rative of the deeds which profane authors attribute to him, we might 
be disposed to regard Sesos' tris as others have done, as no more than 
a mythological personification of the Sun, the god of day, " the 
giant that rejoiceth to run his course from one end of heaven to the 
other." But with such an amount of testimony bearing on the sub- 
ject, we cannot doubt the existence of this mighty conqueror, al- 
though probably his exploits have been greatly exaggerated by the 
vanity of his chroniclers ; and it is not improbable that the deeds 
of several monarchs have been attributed to one. After the return 
of Sesos' tris from his conquests, he is said to have employed his 
time to the close of his reign, in encouraging the arts, erecting tem- 

eastem part of Hindoslan, eaters the Bay of Bengal, through a great number of mouths, near 
Calcutta- 

1. Thrace, a large tract of country now embraced in Turkey in Europe, and bordering on the 
Propontis, or sea of Marmora, extended from Macedonia and the JE' gean Sea on the south-west, 
to the Euxine on the north-east. North of the Thracians, extending along the Euxino to the 
river Danube, was the country of the Scythians. 

2. Jpsamboul, so celebrated for its well-known excavated temple;?, is in the northern part of 
Nubia, on the western bank of the Nile. 



Chap. II.j THE ISRAELITES. 39 

pies to the gods, and improving the revenues of his kingdom. After 
his time we know little of the history of Egypt until the reign of 
Pharaoh-Necho, in the beginning of the seventh century,' who is re- 
markable for his successes against Jerusalem. 

5. At the period which we have assigned, somewhat arbitrarily, 
for the commencement of Grecian history, 1856 years before the 
Christian era," Joseph, the son of the patriarch Jacob, was governor 
over Egypt ; and his father's family, by invitation of Pharaoh, had 
settled in Goshen, on the eastern borders of the valley of the Nile. 
This is supposed to have been about three centuries before the time 
of Sesos' tris. On the death of Joseph, the circumstances of the de- 
scendants of Jacob, who were now called Israelites, were greatly 
changed. " A king arose who knew not Joseph j''^' and the children 
of Israel became servants and bondsmen in the land of Egypt. Two 
hundred years they were held in bondage, when the Lord, by his 
servant Moses, brought'' them forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand 
and an outstretched arm, after inflicting the most grievous plagues 
upon their oppressors, and destroying the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh 
in the Red Sea. (1648 B. C.) 

6. Forty years the Israelites, numbering probably two millions 
of souls,<5 wandered in the wilderness on the north-western confines 
of Arabia,^ supported by miraculous interposition ; for the country 
was then, as now, " a land of deserts and of pits, a land of drouth 
and of the shadow of death, a land that no man passed through^ and 
where no man dwelt ;"^^ and after they had completed their wander- 
ings, and another generation had grown up since they had left Egypt, 
they came to the river Jordan,^ and passing through the bed of the 

1. Arabia is an extensive peninsula at the south-western extremity of Asia, lying immediately- 
east of the Red Sea. It is mostly a rocky and desert countrj', inhabited by wandering tribes 
of Arabs, the descendants of lahmael. They still retain the character given to their ancestor. 
The desert has continued to be the home of the Arab ; he has been a man of war from his 
youth ; "his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him." (Gen. xvi. 12.) 

2. The river Jordan (See Jdap, No. VI.) rises towards the northern part of Palestine, on the 
western slope of Jlount Hermon, and after a south course of about forty miles, opens into the 
sea of Galilee near the ancient town of Bethsaida. After passing through this lake or sea, 
which is about fifteen miles long and seven broad, and on and near which occurred so many 
striking scenes in the history of Christ, it pursiies a winding southerly course of about ninety 
miles through a narrow valley, and then empties its waters into the Dead Sea. In this river- 
valley was the dwelling of Lot, "who pitched his tents toward Sodom" (Gen. xiii. 11, 12) ; and 
" in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea," occurred the battle of the " four kings with five." 
(Gen. XV.) The Israelites passed the Jordan near Jericho (Josh. iii. 14-17) ; the prophets Elijah 

a. Paraphrased by Josephus as meaning that the kingdom had passed to another dynasty. 

b. 1G48, B.C. 

c. They had 603,550 men, above 20 years of age, not reckoning Levites. Exodus, xxxviii. 20. 

d. Jeremiah, ii. G. 



40 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

stream, whicli rolled back its waters on their approacli, entered the 
promised land of Palestine/ The death of Moses had left the gov- 
ernment in the hands of Joshua. And " Israel served the Lord all 
the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived 
Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had 
done for his chosen people."^ 

7. From the time of the death of Joshua to the election of Saul 
as first king of Israel, which latter event occurred about seventy 
years after the supposed siege of Troy, Israel was ruled by judges, 
who were appointed through the agency of the priests and of the 
divine oracle, in accordance with the theocratic form of government 
established by Moses. After the death of Joshua, however, the Is- 
raelites often apostatized to idolatry, for which they were punished 
by being successively delivered into the hands of the surroundiug na- 
tions. First they were subdued by the king of Mesopotamia,^^ after 
which the Lord raised up 0th' niel to be their deliverer (1564 B. C) : 
a second defection was punished by eighteen years of servitude to the 
king of the Moabites,'' from whom they were delivered by the enter- 

and Elisha afterwards divided the waters to prove their divine mission (2 Kings, xi. 8) ; the 
leper Naaman was commanded to wash in Jordan and be clean (2 Kings, iv. 10) ; and it is this 
stream in which Jesus was baptized before he entered on his divine mission. (Matt. iii. IG, &c.) 
The Dead Sea, into which the Jordan empties, is so called from the heaviness and consequent 
stillness of its waters, which contain one-fourth part of their weight of salts. The country 
around this lake is exceedingly dreary, and the soil is destitute of vegetation, Sodom and Go- 
morrah are supposed to have stood in the plain now occupied by the lake, and ruins of the 
overthrown cities are said to have been seen on its western borders, {Map No, VI.) 

1. Palestine, a part of modern Syria, now embraced in Turkey in Asia, lies at the eastern 
extremity of the Mediterranean Sea ; extending north and south along the coast about S2U0 
miles, and having an extreme breadth of about 80 miles. Though in anticxuity the northern 
part of Palestine was the seat of the Phcenicians, a great commercial people, yet there arc 
now few good harbors on the coast, those of Tyre and Sidon, once so famous, being now for 
the most part blocked up with sand. The country of Palestine consists principally of rugged 
hills and narrow valleys, although it has a few plains of considerable extent. There are many 
streams falling into the IMediterranean, the largest of which is the Orontes, at the north, but 
none of them are navigable. The river Jordan, on the east, empties its waters into the As- 
plialtic Lake, or Dead Sea, which lafjter, about 55 miles in length, and 20 in extreme width, 
now fills the plain where once stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. North of the Dead 
Sea is the Lake of Gennesareth, or Sea of Galilee, the theatre of some most remarkable mir- 
acles, (Matthew viii. ; Luke viii. ; and Matthew xix. 25.) The principal mountains of Pales- 
tine are those of Lebanon, running in ranges nearly parallel to the Mediterranean, and finally 
connecting with mounts Horeb and Sinai, near the Gulf of Suez. Jerusalem, the capital 
city of Palestine or the Holy Land, will be described in a subsequent article. (See;?. ]G4,J/cCw/- 
loch ; articles Syria, Said, or Sidon, Dead Sea, Lebanon, &c.) {J\Iap No. VI.) 

2. The Moahii.es, so called from Moab, the son of Lot (Gen. xix. 37), dwelt in the coimtry on 
the east of the Dead Sea. {Map No. VI.) 

a. Joshua, xxiv. 31. 

b. Numbers, iii. 8. Some think that the country here referred to was in the vicinity of 
Damascus, and not "beyond the Euplirates," as Mesopotamia would imply. {See Cockayne^s 
Civil Hist, of the Jews, 29-33.) 



Chap II.] THE ISRAELITES. 41 

prising valor of Ehud.^ After his death the Israelites again did evil 
in the sight of the Lord, and " the Lord sold them into the ha,nd of 
Jabin king of Canaan,"^ under whose cruel yoke they groaned twenty 
years, when the prophetess Deborah, and Barak her general, were 
made the instruments of their liberation. The Canaanites were 
routed with great slaughter, and their leader Sisera slain by Jael, in 
whose tent he had sought refuge.^ 

8. Afterwards, the children of Israel were delivered over a prey 
to the Midianites and Amalekites,^ wild tribes of the desert, who 
" came up with their cattle and their tents, as grasshoppers for mul- 
titude." But the prophet Gideon, chosen by the Lord to be the 
liberator of his people, taking with him only three hundred men, 
made a night attack on the camp of the enemy, upon whom such fear 
fell that they slew each other ; so that a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand men were left dead on the field, and only fifteen thousand es- 
caped by flight. In the height of their joy and gratitude, the peo- 
ple would have made Gideon king, but he said to them, " Not I, nor 
my son, but Jehovah shall reign over you."'^ 

9. Again the idolatry of the Israelites became so gross, that the Lord 
delivered them into the hands of the Philistines^ and the Ammonites,* 
from whom they were finally delivered by the valor of Jephthah.<i 
At a later period the Philistines oppressed Israel forty years, but the 
people found an avenger in the prowess of Samson. ^ After the 
death of Samson the aged Eli judged Israel, but the crimes of his 
sons, Hophni and Phinehas, whom he had chosen to aid him in the 
government, brought down the vengeance of the Lord, and thirty 
thousand of the warriors of Israel were slain in battle by the Philis- 

1. The Canaanites, so called from Canaan, one of the sons of Ham (Gen. x. 6-19), then dwelt 
in the lowlands of the Galilee of the Gentiles, between the sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean. 
Barak, descending from Mount Tabor (see IVIap), attacked Sisera on the banks of the river 
Kishon. (Map No. VI.) 

2. The Midianites, so called from one of the sons of Abraham by Keturah, dwelt in western 
Arabia, near the head of the Red Sea. The Amalekites dwelt in the wilderness between the 
Dead Sea and the Red Sea. {Map No. VI.) 

3. The PInlistines (see Map) dwelt on the south-western borders of Palestine, along the coast 
of the Mediterranean, as far north as Mount Carmel, the commencement of the Phoenician 
territories. Their principal towns were Gaza, Gath, Ascalon, and Megiddo, for which see Map, 
The Israelite tribes of Simeon, Dan, Ephraim, and Manasseh, bordered on their territories. 
"The whole of the towns of the coast continued in the hands of the Philistines and Phoenicians, 
and never permanently fell under the dominion of Israel." — Cockayite's Hist, of the Jews, p. 44. 

4. The Jlmmonites (see Map) dwelt on the borders of the desert eastward of the Israelite 
tribes that settled east of the Jordan. 

a. Judges, iii. 15-30. b. Judges, iv. c. Judges, vi. ; vii. ; vUi. 

d. Judges, X. 7 ; xi. 33. e. Judges, xiii. 1 ; xiv. ; xv. ; x^i. 



42 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

tines.^ The propliet Samuel was divinely chosen as the successor of 
Eli. (1152 B. C.) His administration was wise and prudent, but 
in his old age the tyranny of his sons, whom he was obliged to em- 
ploy as his deputies, induced the people to demand a king who 
should rule over them like the kings of other nations. With reluct- 
ance Samuel yielded to the popular request, and by divine guidance, 
anointed Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, king over Israel.^ (1110 
B. C.) 

10. We have thus briefly traced the civil history of the Israelites 
down to the period of the establishment of a monarchy over them, 
in the person of Saul, at a date, according to the chronology which 
we have adopted, seventy-three years later than the supposed destruc- 
tion of Troy. It is, however, the religious history, rather than the 
civil annals, of the children of Abraham, that possesses the greatest 
value and the deepest interest ; but as our limits forbid our enter- 
ing upon a subject so comprehensive as the former, and the one can- 
not be wholly separated from the other without the greatest violence, 
we refer the reader to the Bible for full and satisfactory details of 
the civil and religious polity of the Jews, contenting ourselves with 
having given merely such a skeleton of Jewish annals, in connection 
with profane history, as may serve to render the comparative chro- 
nology of the whole easy of comprehension. 

a. 1 Sara. \v. 10. b. x. 1. 



Chap. III.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 43 



CHAPTER III. 

THE UNCERTAIN PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY: 

EXTENDING FROM THK CLOSE OF THE TROJAN WAR TO THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA : 

1183 TO 490 B. c. r= 693 years. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Introductory. — 2. Consequences of the Trojan war. — 3. Thessa'lian con- 
QUKST. — [Epirus. Pin' dug. Peneus.] — 4. Bceo'tian conquest. — ^o' lian migration. [Les'- 
bos. 5 Doris.] Return of the Heracli' d^.— 6. Numbers and military character of the 
Dorians. — Passage of the Corinthian Gulf. — [Corinthian Isthmus. — Corinthian Gulf. — Naupac'- 
tus.]— 7. Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus. [Arcadia. Achaia.] Ionian and Dorian mi- 
grations.— 8. Dorian invasion of At' tica.— [Athens. Delphos.] Self-sacrifice of Codrus. 
Government of At' tica.— 9. [Laconia.] Its government. Lycur'gus.— 10. Travels of Lycur'- 
gus. [The Brahmins.] Institutions of Lycur'gus. — 11. Plutarch's account — senate — 
assemblies— division of lauds.— 12. Movable property. The currency.— 13. Public tables. 
Object of Spartan education, and aim of Lycur'gus.- 14. Disputes about Lycur'gus. His 
supposed fate, [Delphos, Cr6te. and E' lis.]— 15. The three classes of the Ionian population. 
Treatment of the H61ots.— 16. The provincials. Their condition.— 17. [Mess6ma. Ithome.] 
First Messe'nian war. Results of the war to the Messenians.— 18. Its influence on the 
Spartans. Second Messe'nian WAR. Aristom'enes.— 19. The PoetTyrtae'us. [Corinth. Sic'- 
yon.] Battle of the Pamisus. The Arcadians. 20. Results of the war.— 21. Government of 
Athens. Dra' co.— 22. Severity of his laws.— 23. Anarchy. Legislation of Solon. Solon's 
integrity.— 24. Distresses of the people. The needy and the rich— 25. The policy of Solon. 
Debtors— lands of the poor— imprisonment. Classification of the citizens.— 26. Disabilities 
and privileges of the fourth class. General policy of Solon's system.— 27. The nine archons. 
The Senate of Four Hundred.— 28. Court of the Areop' agus. Its powers. Institutions of 
Solon compared with the Spartan code.— 29. Parly feuds. Pisis' tratus.— 30. His usurpation 
of power. Opposition to, and character of, his government.— 31. The sons of Pisis' tratus. 
Conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiion.— 32. Expulsion of the Pisistratids. Intrigues 
ofHip'pias. [Lyd' ia. Per' sia.]— 33. The Grecian eolonies conquered by Crce' sus— by the 
Persians. Application for aid.— 34. Ion' ic Revolt. Athens and Euboe' a aid the lonians. 
[Eubce'a. Sar'dis. Eph'esus.] Results of the Ionian war. [Mil6tus.] Designs of Darius. 

Cotemporary History. — I. Phceni cian History. 1. Geography of Phoenicia.— 2. Early his- 
tory of Phoenicia. Political condition. Colonies.— 3. Supposed circumnavigation of Africa.— 
4. Commercial relations. II. Jewish History— continuation of.— 6. Accession of Saul to the 
throne. Slaughter of theAm' monites. [Jabesh Gil' ead. Gil' gal.] War with the Philistines.— 7. 
Wars with the surrounding nations. Saul's disobedience.— 8. David— his prowess. [Gath.] 
Saul'sjealousy of David. David's integrity.— 9. Death of Saul. [Mount Gil' boa.] Division of the 
kingdom between David and Ish' bosheth. [Hebron.] Unionof the tribes.— 10. Limited possess- 
ions of the Israelites. [Tyre. Sidon. Joppa. Jerusalem.] David takes Jerusalem .—11. His other 
conquests. [Syria. Damascus. Rabbah.] Siege of Rabbah. Close of David's reign.— 12, 
Solomon. His wisdom— fame— commercial relations.— 13. His impiety. Close of his reign.— 
14. Revolt of the ten tribes. Their subsequent history.- 15. Rehoboam's reign over Judah. 
Reign of Ahaz. Hezekiah. Signal overthrow of the Assyrians.— 17. Corroborated by pro- 
fane history.— 18. Account given by Herod' otus.— 19. Reigns of Manas' seh, A' mon, Josi.ah, 
and Jehoahaz.— 20. Reign of Jehoiakim— of Jechoniah.— 21. Reign of Hezekiah. Destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem.— 22. Captivity of the Jews.— 23. Rebuilding of Jerusalem. III. Ro- 
man History.—24. Founding of Rorae.—lV. Persian History.— 25. Dissolution of the As- 
syrian empire.— 26. Establishment of the empire Of the Medes and Babylonians. First and 



44 ANCIE^TT HISTORY. [Part I. 

second captivity of the Jews. — 27. Other conquests of Nebuchadnez' zar. His war with the 
Phoenicians.— 28. With the Egyptians. Fulfilment of Ezekiel's prophecy.— 29. Impiety and 
pride of Nebuchadnezzar. His punishment.— 30. Belshaz' zar's reign. Rise of the separate 
kingdom of Media. Founding of the Persian empire. — 31. Cyrus defeats Croe' sus — subjugates 
the Grecian colonies — conquers Babylon. Prophecies relating to Babylon. — 32. Remainder of 
the reign of Cyrus.— 33. Reign of Camby' ses. [Jupiter Am' mon.]— 34. Accession of Darius 
Hystas'pes. Revolt and destruction of Babylon.— 35. Expedition against the Scythians. 
[Scylhia. River Don. Thrace.] — 36. Other events in the history of Darius. His aims, policy, 
and government.— 37. Extent of the Persian empire. 

1. Passing from the fabulous era of Grecian history, we enter 
upon a period when the crude fictions of more than mortal heroes, 
and demi-gods, begin to give place to the realities of human exist- 
ence ; but still the vague, disputed, and often contradictory annals 
on which we are obliged to rely, shed only an uncertain light around 
us ; and even what we have gathered as the most reliable, in the 
present chapter, perhaps cannot wholly be taken as undoubted his- 
toric truth, especially in chronological details. 

2. The immediate consequences of the Trojan war, as represented 
by Grreek historians, were scarcely less disastrous to the victors than 
to the vanquished. The return of the Grecian heroes to their coun- 
try is represented by Homer and other early writers to have been 
full of tragical adventures, while their long absence had encouraged 
usurpers to seize many of their thrones ; and hence arose fierce wars 
and intestine commotions, which greatly retarded the progress of 
Grecian civilization. 

3. Among these petty revolutions, however, no events of general 
I. thessa' lian interest occurred until about sixty years after the fall of 

CONQUEST. Troy, when a people from Epirus,^ passing over the 
mountain chain of Pin' dus,'^ descended into the rich plains which lie 
along the banks of the Peneus,^ and finally conquered^i the country, to 



1. The country o? Epirus, comprised in the present Turkish province of Albania, was at 
the north-western extremity of Greece, lying along the coast of the Adrialic Sea, or Gulf of 
Venice, and bounded on the north by Macedonia, and on the east by Macedonia and Thes - 
saly. The inhabitants in early times were probably Pelas'glc, but they can hardly be consid- 
ered ever to have belonged to the Hellenic race, or Grecians proper. Epirus is principally 
distinguished in Roman history as the country of the celebrated Pyr' rhus (see p. 149.) The 
earliest oracle of Greece was that of Dodoua in Epirus, but its exact locality is unknown. 
There was another oracle of the same name in Tiies' saly. (Map No. I.) 

2. Pin' dus is the name of the mountain chain which separated Thes' saly from Epirus. 
{Map No. I.) 

3. Peneiis, the principal river of Thes' saly, rises in the Pin' dus raoimlains, and flowing in a 
course generally east, passes through the vale of Tem' pe, and empties its waters into the Ther- 
maic Gulf, now the gulf of Salonica, a branch of the M' gean Sea, or Archipelago. {Map 
No. I.) 

a. About 1224 B, C. 



Chap. III.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 45 

which they gave the name of Thes' saly ; driving away most of the 
inhabitants, and reducing those who remained to the condition of 
serfs, or agricultural slaves. 

4. The fugitives from Thes' saly, driven from their own country, 
passed over into Boeotia, which they subdued after a long n. bceo' tian 
struggle, imitating their own conquerors in the disposal conquest. 
of the inhabitants. The unsettled state pf society occasioned by the 
Thessalian and Boeotian conquests was the cause of collecting to- 
gether various bands of fugitives, who, being joined by adventurers 
from Peloponnesus, jDassed over. into Asia,^ constituting the jEolian 
migration^ so called from the race which took the prin- m. ^o'lian 
cipal share in it. They established their settlements in migration. 
the vicinity of the ruins of Troy, and on the opposite island of Les'- 
bos,^ while on the main land they built many cities, which were com- 
prised in twelve States, the whole of which formed the JEolian Con- 
federacy. 

5. About twenty years after the Thessalian conquest, the Dorians, 
a Hellenic tribe, whose country, Doris,^ a mountainous region, was 
on the south of Thes' saly, being probably harassed by their northern 
neighbors, and desirous of a settlement in a more fertile territory, 
commenced a migration to the Peloponnesus, accompanied by por- 
tions of other tribes, and led, as was asserted, by descendants of 
Her' cules, who had formerly been driven into exile from the latter 
country. This important event in Grrecian history is ^^ returx 
called the Return of the Hej'aclldce. The migration of the of the 
Dorians was similar in its character to the return of the ^'^^.acli d^. 
Israelites to Pcilestine, as they took with them their wives and chil- 
dren, prepared for whatever fortune should award them. 

6. The Dorians could muster about twenty thousand fighting men, 
and although they v>^ere greatly inferior in numbers to the inhabit- 
ants of the countries which they conquered, their superior military 
tactics appear generally to have insured them an easy victory in the 



1. Les'bos, one of the most celebrated of the Grecian islands, now called Mytil6ne, from its 
principal city, lies on the coast of Asia Minor, north of the entrance to the Gulf of Smyrna. 
Anciently, Les' bos contained nine flourishing cities, founded mostly by the ^Eoliaus. The 
Lesbians were notorious for their dissolute manners, while at the same time they were 
distinguished for intellectual cultivation, and especially for poetry and music. (Map No. III.) 

2. Doris, a small mountainous country, extending only about forty miles in length, was 
situated on the south of Thes' saly, from which it was separated by the range of mount CE' ta. 
The Dorians were the most powerful of the Hellenic tribes. (Map No. I.) 

a. About 10-iO B. C. 



46 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

open field. Twice, however, they were repelled in their attempts to 
break through the Corinthian isthmus,^ the key to Southern Greece, 
when, warned by these misfortunes, they abandoned the guarded 
isthmus, and crossing the Corinthian GulP from Naupac' tus,^ landed 
safely on the north-western coast of the peninsula. (B. C. 1104). 

7. The whole of Peloponnesus, except the central and mountainous 
district of Arcadia* and the coast province of Achaia," was eventually 
subdued, and apportioned among the conquerors, — all the old inhab- 
itants who remained in the country being reduced to an inferior con- 
dition, like that of the Saxon serfs of England at the time of the 
Norman conquest. Some of the inhabitants of the southern part 
of the peninsula, however, uniting under valiant leaders, conquered 
the province of Achaia, and expelled its Ionian inhabitants, many 
of whom, joined by various bands of fugitives, sought a retreat on the 
western coast of Asia Minor, south of the ^olian cities, where, in 

1. The Corinthian Isthmus, between the Corinthian Gulf (now Gulf of Lepan' to) on the 
north-west, and the Saron' ic Gulf (now Gulf of Athens, or iEgina) on the south-east, unites the 
Peloponnesus to the northern parts of Greece, or Greece Proper. The narrowest part of this 
celebrated Isthmus is about six miles east from Corinth, where the distance across is about 
live miles. The Isthmus is high and rocky, and many unsuccessful attempts have been made 
to unite the waters on each side by a canal. The Isthmus derived much of its early celebrity 
from the Isthmian games celebrated there in honor of Palae' mon and Nep' tune. Ruins of 
the temple of Nep' tune have been discovered at the port of Scha3' nus, on the east side of the 
Isthmus. {Map No. I.) 

2. The Corinthian Gulf (now called the Gulf of Lepan' to) is an eastern arm of the Adriatic, 
or Gvilf of Venice, and lies principally between the coast of ancient Phocis on the north, and 
of Achaia on the south. The entrance to the gulf, between two ruined castles, the Roum61ia 
on the north, and the Morea on the south, is only about one mile across. Within, the waters 
expand into adeep magnificent basin, stretching about seventy-eight miles to the south-east, 
and being, where widest, about twenty miles across. Near the mouth of this gulf was fought, 
in the year 1570, one of the greatest naval battles of modern times. (Map No. I.) 

3. JVaupac' tus (now called Lepan' to) stands on a hill on the coast of Locris, about three and 
a half miles from the ruined castle of Roumelia. It is said to have derived its name from the 
circumstance of the HeraclidcB having there constructed the fleet in which they crossed over 
to the Peloponn6sus. (J^Taus, a ship, and Pego, or Pegnumi, to construct.) It was once a place 
of considerable importance, but is now a ruinous town. (Map No. I.) 

4. Jlrcddia, the central country of the Peloponnesus, and, next to Laconia, the largest of ita 
six provinces, is a mountainous region, somewhat similar to Switzerland, having a length and 
breadth of about forty miles each. The most fertile part of the country was towards the south, 
where were several delightful plains, and numerous vineyards. The Alph6us is the principal 
river of Arcadia. Tegea and Mantin6a v/ere its principal cities. Its lakes are small, but 
among them is the Slymphalus, of classic fame. The Arcadians, scarcely a genuine Greek 
race, were a rude and pastoral people, deeply attached to music, and possessing a strong love 
of freedom. (Map No. I.) 

5. AchMa, the most northern country of the Peloponn6sus, extended along the Corinthian 
Gulf, north of E' lis and Arcadia. It was a country of moderate fertility ; its coast was for the 
most part level, containing no good harbors, and exposed to inundations ; and its streama 
were of small size, many of them mere winter torrents, descending from the ridges of Arcadia. 
Originally Achaia embraced the territory of Sic' yon, on the east, but the latter was finally 
•wrested from it by the Dorians. The Achae' ans are principally celebrated for being the orig- 
inators of the celebrated Achaean league. (Sec p. 107.) (Map No. I.) 



Chap. III.] . GRECIAN HISTORY 47 

process of time, twelve Ionian cities were built, the whole of which 
were united in the Ionian Confederacy, while their new country re- 
ceived the name of Ionia. At a later period, bands of the Dorians 
themselves, not content with their conquest of the Peloponnesus, 
thronged to Asia Minor, where they peopled several cities on the 
coast of Caria, south of Ionia ; so that the ^'gean Sea was jBually 
circled by Grrecian settlements, and its islands covered by them. 

8. About the year 1068, the Dorians, impelled, as some assert, by 
a general scarcity, the natural effect of long-protracted wars, invaded 
At' tica, and encamped before the walls of Athens.^ The chief of 
the Dorian expedition, having consulted the oracle of Del' phos,^ was 
told that the Dorians would be successful so long as Codrus, the 
Athenian king, was uninjured. The latter, being informed of the 
answer of the oracle, resolved to sacrifice himself for the good of 
his country ; and going out of the gate, disguised in the garb of a 
peasant, he provoked a quarrel with a Dorian soldier, and suffered 
himself to be slain. On recognizing the body, the superstitious Do- 
rians, deeming the war hopeless, withdrew from At' tica ; and the 
Athenians, out of respect for the memory of Codrus, declared that 
no one was worthy to succeed him, and abolished the form of roy- 
alty altogether.^ Magistrates called archons, however, differing little 
from kings, were now appointed from the family of Codrus for life ; 
after a long period these were exchanged^ for archons appointed for 
ten years, until, lastly ,<^ the yearly election of a senate of Archons 
gave the final blow to royalty in Athens, and established an aristo- 
cratical government of the nobility. These successive encroachments 



1. Athens, one of the most famous cities of antiquity, is situated on the western side of the 
At' tic peninsula, about five miles from the Saron'ic Gulf, now the Gulf of ^giiia. Most of 
the ancient city stood on the west side of a rocky eminence called the Acrop' olis, surrounded 
by an extensive plain, and, at the time when it had attained its greatest magnitude, was twenty 
miles in circumference, and encompassed by a wall surmounted, at intervals, by strongly-for- 
tified towers. The small river Cephis' sus, flowing south, on the west side of the city, and the 
river His' sus, on the east, flowing south-west, inclosed it in a sort of peninsula ; but both 
streams lost themselves in the marshes south-west of the cily. The walers of the Ilis' sus were 
mostly drawn off to irrigate the neighboring gardens, or to supply the artificial fountains of 
Athens. {Map No. I. See farther description, p. 5(54.) 

2. Dd'phos, or Del' phi, a small city of Phocis, situated on the southern declivity of Mount 
Parnas' sus, forty-five miles north-west from Cor' inth, and eight and a half miles from the nearest 
point of the Corinthian Gulf, Avas the seat of the most remarkable oracle of the ancient world. 
Above Del' phi arose the two towering cliffs of Parnas' sus, while from the chasm between 
them flowed the waters of the Castdlian spring, the source of poetical inspiration. Below lay 
a rugged mountain, past which flowed the rapid stream Plis' tus ; while on both sides of the 
plain, where stood the little city, arose steep and almost inaccessible precipices. (Map No. I.) 

a. 1068 B. G. b. 752 B. C. c. 682 B. C. 



48 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

on the royal prerogatives are almost the only events that fill the 
meagre annals of Athens for several centuries.'^ 

9. While these changes were occurring at Athens, Laconia,^ whose 
capital was Sparta, although often engaged in tedious wars with the 
Ar' gives," was gradually accjuiring an ascendancy over the Dorian 
states of the Peloponnesus. After the Heraclidae had obtained pos- 
session of the sovereignty, two descendants of that family reigned 
jointly at Lacedj©' mou, but this divided rule served only to increase 
the public confusion. Things remained, however, in this situation 
until some time in the ninth century B. C, when Polj^dec' tes, one 
of the kings, died without children. The reins of government then 
fell into the hands of his brother Lycur' gus, but the latter soon re- 
signed the crown to the posthumous son of Polydec' tes, and, to 
avoid the imputation of ambitious designs, went into voluntary exile, 
although against the wishes of the best of his countrymen. 

10. He is said to have visited many foreign lands, observing their 
institutions and manners, and conversing with their sages — to have 
studied the Cretan laws of Minos — to have been a disciple of the 
Egyptian priests — and even to have gathered wisdom from the Brah- 
mins^ of India, emplopng his time in maturing a plan for remedying 
the evils which afilicted his native country. On his return he ap- 
plied himself to the business of framing a new constitution for Sparta, 
after consulting the Delphic oracle, which assured him that " the 
constitution he should establish would be the most excellent in the 
world." Having enlisted the aid of the most illustrious citizens, 

V iNSTiTu- ^^^ *^^^ ^^P arms to support him, he procured the 

TioNs OF enactment of a code of laws, by which the form of 

LYCUR GUS. government, the military discipline of the people, the 

distribution of property, the education of the citizens, and the rules 

1. Laconia, situated at the southern extremity of Greece, had Ar' golis and Arcadia on the 
north, Me9s6nia on the west, and the sea on the south and east. Its extent was about fifty 
miles from north to south, and from twenty to thirty from east to west. Its principal river was 
the Eiirotas, on the western bank of which was Sparta, the capital ; and its mountains were 
the ranges of Par' non on the north and east, and of Tayg' etus on the west, which rendered 
the fertile valley of the Eurotas, comprising the principal part of Laconia, exceedingly diffi- 
cult of access. The two southern promontories of Laconia were Slal^a and Tsenarium, now 
called St. Angelo and Matapan. (Map No. I.) 

2. The Ar' gives proper were inhabitants of the slate and city of Ar'gos; but the word is 
often applied by the poets to all the inhabitants of Greece. (J]Iap No. I.) 

3. The Brahmins were a class of Hindoo priests and philosophers, worshippers of the Indian 
god Brama, the supposed creator of the world. They were the only persons who understood 
the Sanscrit, the ancient language of Hindoostan, in which the sacred books of the Hindoos 
were written. 

a. Thirwall, i. p. 175. 



Chap. 111.] GRECIAN HISTORY 49 

of domestic life, were to be established on a new and immutable 
basis. 

1 1. The account which Plutarch gives of these regulations asserts 
that Lycur' gus first established a senate of thirty members, chosen 
for life, the two kings being of the number, and that the former 
shared the power of the latter. There were also to be assemblies of 
the people, who were to have no right to propose any subject of de- 
bate, but were only authorized to ratify or reject what might be 
proposed to them by the senate and the kings. Lycur'gus next 
made a new division of the lands, for here he found great inequality 
existing, as there were many indigent persons who had no lands, and 
the wealth was centred in the hands of a few. 

12. In order farther to remove inequalities among the citizens, 
and, as far as possible, to place all on the same level, he next at- 
tempted to divide the movable property ; but as this measure met 
with great opposition, he had recourse to another method for accom- 
plishing the same object. He stopped the currency of gold and sil- 
ver coin, and permitted iron money only to be used ; and, to a great 
quantity and weight of this he assigned but a small value, so that, 
to remove one or two hundred dollars of this money would require 
a yoke of oxen. This regulation put an end to many kinds of in- 
justice, for " Who," says Plutarch, " would steal or take a bribe; 
who would defraud or rob, when he could not conceal the booty, — 
when he could neither be dignified by the possession of it, nor be 
served by its use ?" Unprofitable and superfluous arts were excluded, 
trade with foreign States was abandoned ; and luxury, losing its 
sources of support, died away of itself 

13. To promote sobriety, all the citizens, and even the kings, ate 
at public tables, and of the plainest fare ; each individual being ob- 
liged to bring in, monthly, certain provisions for the common use. 
This regulation was designed, moreover, to furnish a kind of school, 
where the young might be instructed by the conversation of their 
elders. From his birth, every Spartan belonged to the State ; 
sickly and deformed infants were destroyed, those only being thought 
worthy to live who promised to become useful members of the com- 
munity. The object of Spartan education was to render children 
expert in manly exercises, hardy, and courageous ; and the principal 
aim of Lycur' gus appears to have been to render the Spartans a na- 
tion of warriors, although not of conquerors, for he dreaded the ef- 
fects of an extension of territory beyond the boundaries of Laconia. 

4 



50 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I, 

14. Lycur'gTis left none of his laws in writing ; and some of the 
regulationB attributed to him were probably the results of subsequent 
legislation. It is even a disputed point in what age Lycur'gus 
lived, some making him cotemporary with the Heraclidse, and others 
dating his era four hundred years later, after the close of the Messe- 
niau wars ; but the great mass of evidence fixes his legislation in 
the ninth century before the Christian era. It is said that after he 
had completed his work, he set out on a journey, having previously 
bound the Spartans by an oath to make no change in his laws until 
his return, and, that they might never be released from the obliga- 
tion, he voluntarily banished himself forever from his country, 
and died in a foreign land. The place and manner of his death 
are unknown, but Derphos, Crete, and E'lis,^ all claimed his 
tomb. 

1 5. There were three classes among the population of Laconia : — - 
the Dorians of Sparta ; their serfs, the Helots ; and the people of 
the provincial districts.* The former, properly called Spartans, 
vrere the ruling caste, who neither employed themselves in agricul- 
ture nor commerce, nor practiced any mechanical art.^ The Helot;^ 
were slaves, who, as is generally believed, on account of their obsti- 
nate resistance in some early wars, and subsequent conquest, had been 
reduced to the most degi'ading servitude. They were alwaj'^s viewed 
with suspicion by their masters, and although some were occasionally 
emancipated, yet measures of the most atrocious violence were often 
adopted to reduce the strength and break the spirits of the bravest 
and most aspiring, who might threaten an insurrection. 

16. The people of the provincial districts were a mixed race, com- 
posed partly of strangers who had accompanied the Dorians, and 
aided them in their conquest, and partly of the old inhabitants of 
the country who had submitted to the conquerors. The provincials 
were under the control of the Spartan government, in the adminis- 
tration of which they had no share, and the lands which they held 
wore tributary to the State ; they formed an important part of the 

1. Del'plios and Cr6te have been described. Tlie smnmit of Mount I' da, in Crete, was 
Kicred to JiipUer. Here also Cyb'ele, the "mother of the gods," was worshipped. (The 
Mount I' da mentioned by tlie poets was in the Aicinhy of ancient Troy.) E'lis was a district 
of the Peloponn6sus, lying west of Arcadia. At Olyra' pia, situated on the river A]ph6us, in 
tills district, the celebrated Olympic games were celebrated in honor of Jupiter. E' lis, the 
capital of the district, was situated on the river Pen6us, thirty miles north-west from OljTn' pia. 
{Map No. I.) 

a. Tliirwall, i. 129. b. Iliirs lustilulious of Ancient Greece, p. 153. 



Chap. III.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 51 

military force of the country, and, on the whole, had little to com- 
plain of but the want of political independence. 

1 7. During a century or more after the time of Lycur' gus. the 
Spartans remained at peace with their neighbors, except a few petty 
contests on the side of Arcadia and Ar' gos. Jealousies, however, 
arose between the Spartans and their brethren of Messenia,' which, 
stimulated by insults and injuries on both sides, gave rise to the first 
Messenian war, 743 years before the Christian era. vi. first mes- 
Aftcr a conflict of twenty years, the Messenians were senian war. 
obliged to abandon their principal fortress of Ithome,'^ and to leave 
their rich fields in the possession of the conquerors. A few of the 
inhabitants withdrew into foreign lands, but the principal citizens 
took refuge in Ar' gos and Arcadia ; while those Avho remained were 
reduced to a condition little better than that of the Laconian He- 
lots, being obliged to pay to their masters one-half of the fruits of 
the land which they were allowed to till. 

18. The Messenian war exerted a great influence on the character 
and subsequent history of the Spartans, as it gave a full development 
to the warlike spirit which the institutions of Lycur' gus were so 
well calculated to encourage. The Spartans, stern and unyielding 
in their exactions from the conquered, again drove the Messenians 
to revolt (685 B. C), thirty-nine years after the termi- ^^^ second 
nation of the former war. The latter found a worthy messenian 
leader in Aristom' enes, whose valor in the first battle 

struck fear into his enemies, and inspired his countrymen with con- 
fidence. The Spartans, sending to the Delphic oracle for advice, 
received the mortifying response, that they must seek a leader from 
the Athenians, between whose country and Laconia there had been 
no intercourse for several centuries. 

19. The Athenians, fearing to disobey the oracle, and reluctant 
to further the cause of the Spartans, sent to the latter the poet Tyr- 
t?e' us, who had never been distinguished as a warrior. His patriotic 
odes, however, roused the spirit of the Spartans, who, obtaining Do- 
rian auxiliaries from Corinth,^ commenced the war anew. The 

1. Jllessenia was a country west of I.aconia, and at the south-western extremity of the 
Peloponnesus. It was separated from E' lis on the north by the river Neda, and from Arcadia 
and Laconia by mountain ranges. The Pamisus was its principal river. On the western coast 
was the deep bay of Py' lus, which has become celebrated in modern history under the name 
of jYavarino (see p..')17)— the only perfectharbor of Southern Greece. (Jilap No. I.) 

2. Ith67ne was in Central Messenia, on a high hill on the western side of the vale of the 
Pamisus, (Map No. I.) 

3. Cor' inth was situated near the islhinu;? of the same name, between the Gulf of Lcpan' to 



52 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

Messenians, on the other hand, were aided by forces from Sic' yon* 
and Ar' gos, Arcadia and E' lis, and, in a great battle near the mouth 
of the Pamisus,^ in Messenia, they completely routed their enemies. 
In the third year of the war the Arcadian auxiliaries of the Messe- 
nians, seduced by bribes, deserted them in the heat of battle, and 
gave the victory to the Spartans. 

20. The war continued, with various success, seventeen years, 
throughout the whole of which period Aristom' enes distinguished 
himself by many noble exploits ; but all his efforts to save his 
country were ineffectual. A second time Sparta conquered (668), 
and the yoke appeared to be fixed on Messenia forever. Thence- 
forward the growing power and reputation of Sparta seemed des- 
tined to undisputed preeminence, not only in the Peloponnesus, but 
throughout all G-reece. 

21. At the period of the close of the second Messenian war, 
Athens, as previously stated, was under the aristocratical govern- 
ment of a senate of archons-magistrates chosen by the nobility from 
their own order, who possessed all authority, religious, civil, and 
military. The Athenian populace not only enjoyed no political 
rights, but was reduced to a condition but little above servitude ; 
and it appears to have been owing to the anarchy that arose from 
ruinous extortions of the nobles on the one hand, and the resistance 

^ of the people on the other, that Draco, the most eminent 
' of the nobility, was chosen to prepare the first written 
code of laws for the government of the State. (622 B. C.) 



oil the north-west, and of ^Egina on the south-east, two miles from the nearest pouit of the 
former, and seven from the latter. The site of the town was at the north foot of a steep rock 
called the Acrop' olis of Cor' inth, 1,336 feet in height, the smnmit of which is now, as in an- 
tiquity, occupied as a fortress. This eminence may be distinctly seen from Athens, from which 
it is distant no less than forty-four miles in a direct line. Cor' inth was a large and populous 
city when St. Paul preached the Gospel there for a year and six months. (Acts, x-viii. 11.) 
The present town, though of considerable extent, is thinly peopled. The only Grecian ruin 
now to be seen there is a dilapidated Doric temple. {Map No. I.) 

" Where is thy grandeur Corinth ? Shrunk from sight. 
Thy ancient treasures, and thy rampart's height. 
Thy god-like fanes and palaces ! Oh, where 
ITiy mighty myriads and majestic fair ! 
Relentless war has poured aromid thy wall, 
And hardly spared the traces of thy fall !" 

1. Sic' yon, once a great and flourishing city, was situalcd near the Gulf of Lepan' to, about 
ten miles north-west from Cor' inth. It boasted a high antiquity, and by some was considered 
older than Ar' gos. The ruins of the ancient town are still to be seen near the small modern 
village of Basilico. (Map No. T.) 

2. The ramisus (now called tho Pimatza) was the principal river of Messenia. (Map No. I.) 



Chap. III.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 53 

22. The severity of liis laws lias made his name proverbial. Their 
character was thought to be happily expressed, when one said of them 
that they were written, not in ink, but in blood. He attached the 
same penalty to petty thefts as to sacrilege and murder, saying that 
the former offences deserved death, and he had no greater punishment 
for the latter. It is thought that the nobles suggested the severity 
of the laws of Draco, thinking they would be a convenient instru- 
ment of oppression in their hands ; but human nature revolted 
against such legalized butchery, and the system of Draco soon fell 
into disuse. 

23. The commonwealth was finally reduced to complete anarchy, 
without law, or order, or system in the administration of justice, 
when Solon, who was descended from the line of Codrus, was raised 
to the office of first magistrate (594 B. C), and, by the consent of all 
parties, was chosen as a general arbiter of their differ- ^^ legisla- 
ences, and invested with full authority to frame a new tion of 
constitution and a new code of laws. The almost unlim- solox. 
ited pov,^er conferred upon Solon might easily have been perverted 
to dangerous purposes, and many advised him to make himself ab- 
solute master of the State, and at once quell the numerous factions 
by the exercise of royal authorit}^ And, indeed, such a usurpation 
would probably have been acquiesced in with but little opposition, 
as offering, for a time at least, a refuge from evils that had already 
become too intolerable to be borne. But the stern integrity of Solon 
was proof against all temptations to swerve from the path of honor, 
and betray the sacred trust reposed in him. 

24. The grievous exactions of the ruling orders had already re- 
duced the laboring classes, generally, to poverty and abject depend- 
ence : all whom bad times or casual disasters had compelled to bor- 
row, had been impoverished by the high rates of interest ; and 
thousands of insolvent debtors had been sold into slavery, to satisfy the 
demands of relentless creditors. In this situation of affairs the most 
violent or needy demanded a new distribution of property, as had been 
done in Sparta ; while the rich would have held on to all the fruits 
of their extortion and tyrann}^ 

25. But Solon, pursuing a middle course between these extremes, 
relieved the debtor by reducing the rate of interest, and enhancing 
the value of the currency, so that three silver- minse paid an indebt- 
edness of four : he also relieved the lands of the poor from all in- 
cumbrances ; he abolished imprisonment for debt : he restored to 



54 ATTCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

liberty those whom poverty had placed in bondage ; and \\e repealed 
all the laws of Draco, except those against murder. He next ar- 
ranged all the citizens in four classes, according to their landed 
propert}'' ; the first class alone being eligible to the highest civil, 
oifices and the highest commands in the army, while only a few of 
the lower offices were open to the second and third classes. The 
latter classes, however, were partially relieved from taxation ; but in 
war they were required to equip themselves for military service, the 
cue as cavalry, and the other as heavy armed infantry. 

26. Individuals of the fourth class were excluded from all offices, 
but in return they were v/hoily exempt from taxation ; and yet they 
had a share in the government, for they were permitted to take part 
in the popular assemblies, which had the right of confirming or reject- 
ing new laws, and of electing the magistrates ; and here their votes 
counted the same as those of the wealthiest of the nobles. In war 
they served only as light troops, or manned the fleets. Thus the 
system of Solon, being based primarily on property qualifications, 
provided for all the freemen ; and its aim was to bestow uiDon the 
commonalty such a share in the government as would enable it to 
protect itself, and to give to the wealthy what was necessary for re- 
taining their dignity ; — throwing the burdens of government on the 
latter, and not excluding the former from its benefits. 

27. Solon retained the magistracy of the nine archons, but with 
abridged powers ; and, as a guard against democratical extravagance 
on the one hand, and a check to undue assumptions of power on 
the other, he instituted a Senate of Four Hundred, and founded or 
remodelled the court of the Areop' agus. The Senate consisted of 
members selected by lot from the first three classes ; but none could 
be appointed to this honor until they had undergone a strict ex- 
amination into their past lives, characters, and qualifications. The 
Senate was to be consulted by tlie archons in all important mat- 
ters, and was to prepare all new laws and regulations, which were 
to be submitted to the votes of the assembly of the people. 

28. The court of the Areop' agus, which held its sittings on an 
eminence on the'western side of the Athenian Acrop' olis, was com- 
posed of persons who had held the office of archon, and was the 
supreme tribunal in all capital cases. It exercised, also, a general 
superintendence over education, morals, and religion ; and it could 
suspend a resolution of the public assembly which it deemed fraught 
with folly or injustice, until it had undergone a reconsideration. 



Chap. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY. 55 

Such is a brief outline of the institutions of Solon, which exhibit a 
mingling of aristocracy and democracy, well adapted to the char- 
acter of the age, and the circumstances of the people. They exhibit 
less control over the pursuits and domestic habits of individuals than 
the Spartan code, but at the same time they show a far greater re- 
gard for the public morals. 

20. The legislation of Solon was not followed by the total extinc- 
tion of party spirit, and ere long the three prominent factions in the 
State renewed their ancient feuds. Pisis' tratus, a wealthy kinsman 
of Solon, who had supported the measures of the latter by his elo- 
quence and military talents, had the art to gain the favor of the 
populace, and constitute himself their leader. When his schemes 
were ripe for execution, he one day drove into the public square, 
his mules and himself disfigured with recent wounds inflicted by his 
own hands, but which he induced the multitude to believe had been 
received from a band of assassins, whom his enemies, the nobility, 
had hired to murder the friend of the people. An assembly was 
immediately convoked by his partizans, and the indignant crowd 
voted him a guard of fifty citizens to protect his person, although 
warned by Solon of the pernicious consequences of such a measure. 

30. Pisis' tratus took advantage of the popular favor which he had 
gained, and, arming a larger body, seized the Acrop' olis, and made 
himself master of Athens. But the usurper, satisfied with the power 
ef quietly directing the administration of government, made no 
changes in the constitution, and suffered the laws to take their or- 
dinary course. The government of Pisis' tratus was probably a less 
evil than would have resulted from the success of either of the other 
factions ; and in this light Solon appears to have viewed it, although 
he did not hesitate to denounce the usurpation ; and, rejecting the 
usurper's offers of favor, it is said that he went into voluntary exile, 
and died at Sal' amis.' (559 B. C.) Twice was Pisis' tratus driven 
from Athens by a coalition of the opposing factions; but as the latter 
were almost constantly at variance with each other, he finally returned 
at the head of an army, and regained the sovereignty, which he held 
until his death. Although he tightened the reins'of government, yet 
he ruled with equity and mildness, courting popularity by a generous 
treatment of the poorer citizens, and gratifying the national pride 
by adorning Athens with many useful and magnificent works. 

1. Sal' amis is an island in tlie Gulf of Mgina, near the coast of At' tica, and twelve or fifieeu 
mi'.cs south-west from Athens, (See Map No, I,) 



50 AITCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

31. On the death of Pisis' tratiis (528 B. C), his sons Hip'pias, 
Hippar' chiis, and Thes' salus succeeded to his power, and for some 
years trod in his steps and prosecuted his plans, only taking care to 
fill the most important offices with their friends, and keeping a stand- 
ing force of foreign mercenaries to secure themselves from hostile 
factions and popular outbreaks.. After a joint reign of fourteen 
years a conspiracy was planned to free At' tica from their iTile, at 
the head of which were two young Athenians, Harmodius and Aris- 
togeiton, whose personal resentment had been provoked by an atro- 
cious insult to the family of the former. Hippar' chus was killed, 
but the two young Athenians also lost their lives in the stmggle. 

32. Hip' pias, the elder of the ruling brothers, now that he had 
injuries to avenge, became a cruel tyrant, and thus alienated the af- 
fections of the people. The latter finally obtained aid from the 

Spartans, and the family of the Pisistratids was driven 

X. EXPULSION ^ ^ "^ _ 

OF THE from Athens, never to regain its former ascendency ; al- 
pisisTRATiDs. though but a few years after its expulsion, Sparta, re- 
penting the course she had taken, made an ineffectual effort to restore 
Hip' pias to the throne of which she had aided in depriving him. 
Hip' pias then fled to the court of Artapdnes, governor of Lyd' ia,* 
then a part of the Persian dominions of Darius, where his intrigues 
greatly contributed to the opening of a vfar between Greece and 
Persia.^ 

33. Nearly half a century before this time, Croe'sus,^ king of 
Lyd' ia, had conquered the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia 
Minor ; but he ruled them with great mildness, leaving them their 
political institutions undisturbed, and recjuiring of them little more 
than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few years later they 
experienced a change of masters, and, together with Lyd' ia, fell, by 
conquest, under the dominion of the Persians. But they were still 
allowed to retain their own form of government by paying tribute to 
their conquerors ; yet they seized every opportunity to deliver them- 

J. Lijd' ia was a country on the coast of Asia Minor, having Wj-s'ia on the north, Phryg'ia 
on the east, and Caria on the south. The Grecian colony of lunia was embraced within Lyd' ia 
and the northern part of Caria, extending along tlic coast. (Map No. IV.) 

2. IModern Persia, a laVge country of Central A?.ia, extends from the Caspian Sea on the 
north, to the Persian Gulf on the south, having Asiatic Turlvcy on tlie west, and llie province* 
of Affghanistan and Beloochistan on the east. For the greatest ^extent of the Persian empires 
which was during the reign of Darius Hystas' pes, see the JJap No. V. 

3. Cra' sus, the last king of Lyd' ia, was famed for his riches and munificence. Herod' otus 
(i. 30-33, and 36, &c.) and Plutarch (life of Solon) give a very interesting account of the visit 
of the Athenian Solon to the court of that prince, who greatly prided himself on his riches, 
and vainly thought himself the happiest of mankind. 



Chap. Ill] GRECIAN HISTORY. 5Y 

selves from this species of thraldom, and finally the lonians sought 
the aid of their Grecian countrymen, making application, first to 
Sparta, hut in vain, and next (B. C. 500) to Athens, and the Grecian 
islands of the ^'gean Sea. 

34. The Athenians, irritated at this time by a haughty demand 
of the Persian monarch, that they should restore Hip' pias to the 
throne, and regarding Darius as an avowed enemy, gladly took part 
with the lonians, and, in connection with Euboe' a,^ far- xr. ionic 
nished their Asiatic countrymen with a fleet of twenty- revolt. 
five sail. The allied Grecians were at first successful, ravaging 
Lyd' ia, and burning Sar' dis,'^ its capital ; but in the end they were 
defeated near Eph' esus ;^ the commanders quarrelled with each other ; 
and the Athenians sailed home, leaving the Asiatic Greeks divided 
among themselves, to contend alone against the whole power of Per- 
sia. Still the Ionian war was protracted six years, when it was ter- 
minated by the storming of Miletus,* (B. C. 494,) the capital of the 
Ionian confederacy. The surviving inhabitants' of this beautiful 

1. Eubx' a, (now called Neg' roponl',) a long, narrow, and irregular island of the JE' gean 
Sea, (now Grecian Archipel' ago,) extended one hundred and ten miles along the eastern coast 
of Boeotia and At' tica, from which it was separated by the channel of Euripus, which, at one 
place, was only forty yards across. The chief town of the island was Chal' cis, (now Neg' ro- 
pont',) on the western coast. (Map No. I.) 

2. Sar' dis, the ancient capital of Lyd' ia, was situated on both sides of the river Pactolus, a 
southern branch of the Her' mus, seventy miles east from Smyr' na. In the annals of Chris- 
tianity, Sar' dis is distinguished as having been one of the seven churches of Asia. A mis- 
erable village, called Sart, is now found on the site of this ancient city. (Map No. IV.) 

3. Eph' esus, one of the Ionian cities, was situated on the south side, and near the month 
of the small river Cays' ter, on the coast of Lyd' ia, thirty-eight miles south from Smyr' na. 
Here stood a noble temple, erected in honor of the goddess Diana ; but an obscure individ- 
ual, of the name of Heros' tratus, burned it, in order to perpetuate his memory by the infamoTis 
notoriety which such an act would give him ! The grand council of Ionia endeavored to dis- 
appoint tlie incendiary by passing a decree that his name should not be mentioned, but it was 
divulged by the historian Theopom' pus. A new temple was subsequently built, far surpassing 
the first, and ranked among the seven wonders of the world. When St, Paul visited Eph' esus, 
still the cry was, " Great is Diana of the Eph6sians" (Acts, xix. 28, 34) ; but the worship of the 
goddess was doomed speedily to decline, and here St. Paul foimded the principal of the Asiatic 
churches. But war, the ravages of earthquakes, and the desolating hand of time, have com- 
pleted the ruin of this once famous city. "Tlie glorious pomp of its heathen worship is no 
longer remembered ; and Christianity, which was there nursed by apostle?, and fostered by 
general councils, until it increased to fulness of stature, barely lingers on in an existence 
hardly visible." (Map No. IV.) 

4. Miletus, the most distinguished of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, and once greatly cele- 
brated for its population, wealth, commerce, and civilization, was situated in the province of 
Caria, on the southern shore of the bay into which the small river Lat' mus emptied, and about 
thirty-five miles south from Eph' esus. St. Paul appears to have sojourned here a few days ; 
and here he assembled the ciders of the Eph^sinn church, and delivered unto them an affec- 
tionate farewell address. (Acts, xx. 15, 38.) Miletus is now a deserted place, but contains the 
ruins of a few once magnificent structures, and still lears the name of Palat, or the Palaces. 
(Map No. IV.) 



68 ANCIENT HISTORY. TPart 1 

and opulent city were carried away by order of Darius, and settled 
near the mouth of the Tigris. Darius next turned his resentment 
against the Athenians and Euboe' ans, who had aided the Ionian 
revolt, — meditating, however, nothing less than the conquest of all 
Greece (B. C. 490). The events of the " Persian War" which fol- 
lowed, will next be narrated, after we shall have given some general 
views of cotemporary history, during the period which we have passed 
over in the preceding part of the present chapter. 

COTEMPOKARY HISTORY: 1184 to 490 B. C. 

[I. Phcenician History.] — 1. The name Phoenicia was applied to 
the north-western part of Palestine and part of the coast of Syria, 
embracing the country from Mount Carmel, north, along the coast, 
to the city and island Aradus, — an extent of about a hundred and 
fifty miles. The mountain ranges of Lib' anus and Anti-Lib' anus 
formed the utmost extent of the Phoenician territory on the east. 
The surface of the country was in general sandy and hilly, and poorly 
adapted to agriculture ; but the coast abounded in good harbors, 
and the fisheries were excellent, while the mountain ranges in the 
interior afforded, in their cedar forests, a rich supply of timber for 
naval and other purposes. 

2. At a remote period the Phoenicians, who are supposed to have 
. been of the race of the Canaanites,^ were a commercial people, but 

the loss of the Phoenician annals renders it difficult to investigate 
their early history. Their principal towns were probably indepen- 
dent States, with small adjacent territories, like the little G-recian 
republics ; and no political union appears to have existed among 
them, except that arising from a common religious worship, until 
the time of the Persians. The Phoenicians occupied Sicily before 
the Greeks ; they made themselves masters of Cy' prus, and they 
formed settlements on the northern coast of Africa ; but the chief 
seat of their early colonial establishments was the southern part of 
Spain, whence they are said to have extended their voyages to Brit- 
ain, and even to the coasts of the Baltic. 

3. It is also related by Herod' otus, (B. IV. 42,) that at an epoch 
which is believed to correspond to the year 604 before the Chris- 
tian era, a fleet fitted out by Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, but 
manned and commanded by Phoenicians, departed from a port on 

a. Niebulir's T.ecf. on Ancient Tlist. i. 113. 



Chap. HI.] JEWISH HISTORY. 59 

the Red Sea, and sailing south, and keeping always to the right, 
doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of 
three years returned to Egypt by the way of the straits of Gibral- 
tar and tho Mediterranean. Herod' otus farther mentions that the 
navigators asserted that, in sailing round Africa, they had the sun 
on their right hand, or to the north, a circumstance which, Herod'- 
otus says, to him seemed incredible, but which we know must have 
been the case if the voyage was actually performed, because southern 
Africa lies south of the equatorial region. Thus was Africa prob- 
ably circumnavigated by the Phcenicians, more than two thousand 
years before the Portuguese voyage of De Gama. 

4. The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon had friendly connections 
with the Hebrews ; and through the Red Sea, and by the way of 
the Arabian desert, and across the wilderness of Syria, they for a 
long time carried on the commercial exchanges between Europe 
and Asia. From the time of the great commotions in Western 
Asia, which caused the downfall of so many independent States, and 
their subjection to the monarchs of Babylon and Persia, the com- 
mercial prosperity of the Phoenicians began to decline ; but it was 
the founding of Alexandria by the Macedonian conqueror, which 
proved the final ruin of the Phcenician cities. 

[II. Jewish History.] — 5. The history of the Jews, which has 
been brought down to the accession of Saul as king of Israel, pre- 
sents to the historian a fairer field than that of the Phoenicians, 
and is now to be continued down to the return of the Jews from 
their Babylonian captivity, and the completion of the rebuilding of 
the second temple of Jerusalem. 

6. Saul, soon after his accession to the throne, (B. C. 11 10,) 
which was about the time of the Dorian emigration, or the " Return 
of the Heraclidse" to the Peloponnesus, gave proof of his military 
qualifications by a signal slaughter of the Ammonites, who had laid 
siege to Jabesh-Gil' ead.^ In a solemn assembly of the tribes at 
Gil' gal,- the people renewed their allegiance to their new sovereign, 
and there Samuel resigned his office. During a war with the Phil- 
istines soon after, Saul ventured to ask counsel of the Lord, and 
assuming the sacerdotal functions, he offered the solemn sacrifice, 

1. JAbesh-GW ead was a town on the east side of the Jordan, in Gil' ead. (Map No. VI.) 

2. The Oil' gal here mentioned appears to have been a short distance west or norlh-v.'o:i 
of Shechem, near the country of the Philistines. (JlTnp No. VI.) 



60 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

a duty wlilcli the sacred law assigned to the high-priest alone For 
this violation of the law the divine displeasure was denounced against 
him by the prophet Samuel, who declared to him that his kingdom 
should not continue ; and so disheartened were the people, that the 
army of Saul soon dwindled away to six hundred men ; hut by the 
daring valor of Jonathan, his son, a panic was spread among the 
Philistines, and their whole army was easily overthrown. 

7. During several years after this victory, Saul carried on a suc- 
cessful warfare against the different nations that harassed the fron- 
tiers of his kingdom ; but when Agag, the king of the Amalekites, 
had fallen into his hands, in violation of the divine eommand he 
spared his life, and brought away from the vanquished enemy a 
vast booty of cattle. For not fulfilling his commission from the 
Lord, he was declared unfit to be the founder of a race of kings, and 
was told that the sovereign power should be transferred to another 
family. 

8. David, of the tribe of Benjamin, then a mere youth, was di- 
vinely chosen for the succession, being secretly anointed for that 
purpose by Samuel. In the next war with the Philistines he dis- 
tinguished himself by slaying their champion, the gigantic Goliath 
of Grath.^ Saul, however, looked upon David with a jealousy bor- 
dering on madness, and made frequent attempts to take his life ; 
but the latter sought safety in exile, and for a while took up his 
residence in a Philistine city. Returning to Palestine, he sought 
refuge from the anger of Saul in the dens and caves of the moun- 
tains ; and twice, while Saul was pursuing him, had it in his power 
to destroy his persecutor, but he would not " lift his hand against 
the Lord's anointed.'' 

9. After the death of Samuel, the favor of the Lord was wholly 
withdrawn from Saul ; and when the Philistines invaded the country 
with a numerous army, several of the sons of Saul were slain in 
battle on Mount Gil' boa," and Saul himself, to avoid falling alive 
into the hands of his enemies, fell upon his own sword. On the 
death of Saul, David repaired to Hebron,' and, with the support of 
the tribe of Judah, asserted his title to the throne ; but the north- 
ern tribes attached themselves to Ishbosheth, a son of Saul ; — " and 

1. Oath, a town of the Philistines, was about twenty-five miles west from Jerusalem. {Map 
No. VJ.) 

2. Mount Oil' boa is in the southern part of Galilee, a short distance west of the Jordan 
{Map No. VI.) 

3. Hebron, a tov.'n of Judah, was about tv^eniy miles south of Jerusalem. {Map No. VI.) 



Chap. III.] JEWISH HISTORY. 61 

there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of 
David ; hut David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of 
Saul waxed weaker and weaker." The death of Ishbosheth, who 
fell by the hands of two of his own guards, removed the obstacles 
in the way of a union of the tribes, and at Hebron David was pub- 
licly recognized king of all Israel. 

10. After all the conquests which the Israelites had made in the 
land of promise, there still remained large portions of Palestine of 
which they had not yet gained possession. On the south-west were 
the strongholds and cities of the Philistines ; and bordering on the 
north-western coast was the country of the Phoenicians, whose two 
chief cities were Tyre^ and Sidon.^ Joppa^ was the only Mediter- 
ranean port open to the Israelites. Even in the very heart of Pal- 
estine, the Jeb' usites, supposed to have been a tribe of the wan- 
dering Hyk' SOS, possessed the stronghold of Jebus, or Jerusalem,* 
on Mount Zion, after David had become king of " all Israel," But 

1. Tyre^ long the principal city of Phoenicia, and the commercial emporium of the ancient 
world, stood on a small island on the south-eastern or Palestine coast of the Mediterranean, 
about forty miles north-east from Mount Carmcl. The modern town of Siir, (Soor,) with fifteen 
hundred inhabitants, occupies a site opposite the ancient city. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
and Ezekiel, represent Tyre as a city of unrivalled wealth, " a mart of nations," whose " mer- 
chants were princes, and her traffickers the honorable of the earth." (Isaiah, xxiii. 3, 8.) 
After the destruction of the old city by Nebuchadnezzar, New Tyre enjoyed a considerable de- 
gree of celebrity and commercial prosperity ; but the founding of Alexandria, by diverting the 
commerce that had formerly centred at Tyre into a new channel, gave her an irreparable blow, 
and she gradually declined, till, in the language of prophecj', her palaces have been levelled 
with the dust, and she has become " a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." 
(Ezek. xxvi. 5.) The prophet Ezekiel has described, in magnificent terms, the glory and the 
riches of Tyre. (See Ezek. xxvii.) (Map Yio.W.) 

2. Sidov, (now called Said,) was situated near the sea, twenty-two miles north of Tyre, of 
which it was the parent city, and by which it was early eclipsed in commercial importance. 
The modern town contains four or five thousand inhabitants. The site of the ancient city is 
supposed to have been about two miles farther inland. Sidon is twice spoken of in Joshua 
as the " great Sidon" (Josh. xi. 8, and xix. 28) ; and in the time of Homer there were " skillful 
Sidonian artists" (Cowper's II. xxiii. 891). In the division of Palestine, Sidon fell to the lot of 
Asher ; but we learn from Judges, (i. 31,) corroborated also by profane history, that it never 
came into the actual possession of that tribe. In the time of Solomon there wore none among 
the Jews who had " skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians." (1 Kings, v. 6.) The mod- 
ern town of Said, the representative of the ancient city, is on the north side of a cape extending 
into the Mediterranean. (Map No. VI.) 

3. Jop' pa, (now called Jafiii, a town of about four thousand inhabitants,) stands on a tongue 
of land projecting into the Mediterranean, and rising from the shore in the form of an am- 
phitheatre, thirty-two miles north-west from Jerusalem. The " border before Joppa" was in- 
cluded in the possessions of the tribe of Dan (Josh. xix. 46). In the time of Solomon it ap- 
pears to have been a port" of some consequence. Hiram, king of Tyre, writing to Solomon, 
Bays, "We will cut wood out of Lebanon as much as thou shall need ; and we will bring it 
thee in floats by sea to Jop' pa, and thou shalt carry it up to Jerusalem." (Map No. VI.) 

4. Jerusalem, first known as the city of the Jeb' usites, is in the southern part of Palestine, 
nearly intermediate between the northern extremity of the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, 
and thirty-two miles east from Jaf fa. (See farther description p. 164.) 



62 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

David, having resolved upon the conquest of this important city, 
which its inhabitants deemed impregnable, sent Joab, his general, 
against it, with a mighty army ; " and David took the stronghold of 
Zion ;" and so pleased was he with its situation, that he made it the 
capital of his dominions. 

1 1. After the defeat of the Jeb' usites, David was involved in war 
with many of the surrounding nations, whom he compelled to be- 
come tributary to him, as far as the banks of the Euphrates. 
Among these were most of the States of Syr' ia,^ on the north-east, 
with Damas' cus,'^ their capital, and also the E' domites, on the south- 
eastern borders of Palestine. It was in the last of these wars, dur- 
ing the siege of Ptab' bah,^ the Ammonite capital, that David pro- 
voked the anger of the Lord by taking Bath' sheba, the wife of 
Uriah, to himself, and exposing her husband to death. The re- 
mainder of David's life was full of trouble from his children, three 
of whom, Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, died violent deaths — the 
latter two after they had successively rebelled against their father. 
David died after a troubled but glorious reign of forty years, after 
having given orders that his son Solomon should succeed him. 

12. By the conquests of David the fame of the Israelites had 
spread into distant lands, and Solomon obtained in marriage the 
daughter of the king of Egypt. So celebrated was the wisdom of 
Solomon, that the queen of Sheba ^ came to visit him from a dis- 

1. Ancient Syr' ia embraced tlie whole of Palestine and PhoenicLa, and was bounded on Ihe 
east by the Euphrates and the Arabian desert. Syr' ia is. called in Scripture Aram, and the 
inhabitants Aramaeans. The term Syr' ia is a corruption or abridgment of Assyria. {Map 
No. V.) 

2. Damns' cus, one of the most ancient cities of Syr' ia, existed in the time of Abraham, 
two thousand years before the Christian era. (See Gen. xiv. 15.) It was conquered by David, 
but freed itself from the Jewish yoke in the time of Solomon, when, becoming the seat of a 
new principality, it often harassed the kingdoms both of Judah and Israel. At later periods 
it fell successively imder the power of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. As a Roman city it 
attained great eminence, and it appears conspicuously in the history of the Apostle Paul. (Acts, 
ix.) It is now a large and important commercial Mohammedan city, containing a population 
of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants. The city is situated in a pleasant plain, watered 
by a river, the Syriac name of which was Pharphar, on the eastern side of the Anti-Lib' anus 
mountains, a hundred and fifty miles north-east from Jerusalem. {Map No. VI.) 

3. Rabbah, (afterwards called Philadelphia by the Greeks, when it was rebuilt by Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,) was about thirty miles north-east from the northern extremity of the Dead Sea, 
at the source of the brook Jabbok. Extensive ruins, at a place now called .^mmov, consisting 
of the remains of theatres, temples, and colonnades of Grecian construction, mark the site of 
the Ammonite capital. The ancient city is now without an inhabi1;ant, but the excellent water 
foimd there renders the spot a desirable halting-place for caravans, the drivers of which use 
the ancient temples and buildings as shelter for their beasts, literally fulfilling the denunciation 

a. The queen of Sheba is supposed by some to have come from Southern Arabia, but is more 
generally thought to have been the que^n of Abyssinia, which is the firm belief of the Aby» 
feinians to tliis dav. — Kitto's Palestine 



Chap. III.] JEWISH HISTORY. 63 

tant country, and tlae most powerful princes of the surrounding na- 
tions courted liis alliance. With Hiram, king of Tyre, the chief 
city of the Phoenicians, and the emporium of the commerce of the 
Eastern world, he was united by the strictest bonds of friendship. 
Seven years and a half was he occupied in building, at Jerusalem, a 
magnificent temple to the Lord. He also erected for himself a pal- 
ace of unrivalled splendor. A great portion of his immense wealth 
was derived from commerce, of which he was a distinguished patron. 
From ports on the Red Sea, in his possession, his vessels sailed to 
Ophir, some rich country on the shores of the Indian Ocean. By 
the aid of Phoenician navigators he also opened a communication 
with Tar' shish, in western Europe, while the commerce between 
Central Asia and Palestine was carried on by caravans across the 
desert. 

13. But even Solomon, notwithstanding all his learning and wis- 
dom, was corrupted by prosperity, and in his old age was seduced 
by his numerous " strange v\^ives" to forsake the God of his fathers. 
He became an idolater : and then enemies began to arise up against 
him on every side. A revolt was organized in E'dom:^ an inde- 
pendent adventurer seized Damascus, and formed a new Syrian king- 
dom there ; and the prophet Ahijah foretold to Solomon that the 
kingdom of Israel should be rent, and that the dominion of ten of 
the twelve tribes should be given to Jeroboam, of the tribe of Eph- 
raim, although not till after the death of Solomon. 

14. Accordingly, on the death of Solomon, when Rehoboam his 
son came to the throne, the ten northern tribes chose Jeroboam for 
their king ; and Israel and Judah, with which latter was united the 
tribe of Benjamin, became separate kingdoms. The separation thus 
effected is called " The Revolt of the Ten Tribes." (990 B. C.) 
The subsequent princes of the kingdom of Israel, as the Ten Tribes 
were called, were all idolaters in the sight of the Lord, although 
from time to time they were warned of the consequences of their 
idolatry by the prophets Elijah, Elisha, Hosea, Amos, Jonah, and 
others. The history of these ten tribes is but a repetition of 
calamities and revolutions. Their seventeen kings, excluding two 

of Ezekiel : " I will make Rabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels, and a couching place 
for flocks." (Ezekiel, xxv. 5.) {Map No. VI.) 

1. The E' domites, inhabitants of Idum6a, or E" dom, dwell, at this time, in the country south 
and south-east of the Dead Sea. During the Babylonian captivity the E' domites took posses- 
sion of the southern portion of Judea, and made Hebron their capital. They afterwards em- 
braced Judaism, and their territory became incorporated with Judea although in the tinu • of 
our Saviour it still retained the name of Idunn^a. (JiJap No. VF.) 



C4 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part 1. 

pretenders, belonged to seven diiferent families, and were placed on 
the throne bj seven sanguinary conspiracies. At length Shalmanezer, 
king of Assyria, invaded the country ; and Samaria,^ its capital, after 
a brave resistance of three years, was taken by storm. The ten 
tribes were then driven out of Palestine, and carried away captive 
into a distant region beyond the Euphrates, 719 years before the 
Christian era. With their captivity the history of the ten tribes ends. 
Their fate is still unknown to this day, and their history remains un- 
written. 

15. After the revolt of the ten tribes, Rehoboam reigned seven- 
teen years at Jerusalem, over Judah and Benjamin, comprising what 
was called the kingdom of Judah. During his reign he and his 
subjects fell into idolatry, for which they were punished by an in- 
vasion by Shishak, king of Egypt, who entered Jerusalem and car- 
ried off the treasures of the temple and the palace. We find some 
of the subsequent kings of Judah practising idolatry, and suffering 
the severest punishments for their sins : others restored the worship 
of the true God ; and of them it is recorded that " God prospered 
their undertakings." 

16. At the time when Shalmanezer, the Assyrian, carried Israel 
away captive, the wicked Ahaz was king over Judah. He brought 
the country to the brink of ruin, but its fall was arrested by the 
death of the impious monarch. The good Hezekiah succeeded him, 
and, aided by the advice of the prophet Isaiah, commenced his reign 
with a thorough reformation of abuses. He shook off the Assyrian 
yoke, to which his father Ahaz had submitted by paying tribute. 
Sennacherib, the son and successor of Shalmanezer, determining to 
be revenged upon Judah, sent a large army against Jerusalem (711 
B. C.) ; but " the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote, in the 
camp of the Assyrians, a hundred and fourscore and five thousand 
men." The instrument by which the Lord executed vengeance upon 
the Assyrians, is supposed by some to have been the pestilential 
simoom of the desert ; for Isaiah had prophesied of the king of As- 
syria : " Thus saith the Lord ; behold, T will send a blast upon' 
him. "a 

17. It is interesting to find an account of the miraculous destruc- 
tion of the Assyrian army ia the pages of profane history. Senna- 

1. SamAria, (now called Sebnslieh,) the capital of the kingdom of Israel, stood on Mount 
Sameron, about forty miles north from Jerusalem, (Map No. VI.) 

a. Isaiah, xxxvii. G, 7. 



Chap. III.] JEWISH HISTORY. 65 

cherib was at this time marching against Egypt, whose alliance had 
been sought by Hezekiah, when, unwilling to leave the hostile power 
of Judah in his rear, he turned against Jerusalem. It was natural, 
therefore, that the discomfiture which removed the fears of the Egypt- 
ians, should have a place in their annals. Accordingly, Herod' otus 
gives an account of it, which he had learned from the Egyptians 
themselves ; but in the place of the prophet Isaiah, it is an Egyptian 
priest who invokes the aid of his god against the enemy, and pre- 
dicts the destruction of the Assyrian host. 

18. Herod' otus relates that the Egyptian king, directed by the 
priest, marched against Sennacherib with a company composed only 
of tradesmen and artizans, and that " so immense a number of mice 
infested by night the enemy's camp, that their quivers and bows, 
together with what secured their shields to their arms, were gnawed 
in pieces ;" and that, " in the morning the enemy, finding themselves 
without arms, fled in confusion, and lost great numbers of their men." 
Herod' otus also relates that, in his time, there was still standing in 
the Egyptian temple of Vulcan a marble statue of this Egyptian 
king, having a mouse in his hand, and with the inscription : " Learn 
from my fortune to reverence the gods."^ 

19. Hezekiah was succeeded, on the throne of Judah by his son 
Manas' seh, who, in the early part of his reign, revelled in the gross- 
est abominations of Eastern idolatry. Being carried away captive to 
Babylon by Sardanapalus, the Assyrian king, he repented of his sins, 
and was restored to his kingdom. The brief reign of his son A' mon 
was corrupt and idolatrous. The good Josiah then succeeded to the 
throne. His reign was an era in the religious government of the 
nation ; but during an invasion of the country by Pharaoh Necho, 
king of Egypt, he was mortally wounded in battle. Jerusalem was 
soon after taken, and Jehoahaz, who had been elected to the throne 
by the people, was deposed, and carried captive to Egypt, where he 
died. 

20. Not long after this, during the reign of Jehoiakim, the Egypt- 
ian monarch, pursuing his conquests eastward against the Babylo- 
nians, was utterly defeated by Nebuchadnez' zar near the Euphrates, 
— an event which prepared the way for the Babylonian dominion 
over Judea and the west of Asia. Pursuing his success westward, 
Nebuchadnez' zar came to Jerusalem, when the king, Jehoiakim, 
submitted, and agreed to pay tribute for Judah ; but as he rebelled 

n. Herod' otus, Book II. p. 141. 

4 



66 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

after three years, Nebucliadnez' zar returned, pillaged Jerusalem, 
and carried away certain of the royal family and of the nobles as 
hostages for the fidelity of the king and people. (B. C. 605.) 
Among these were the prophet Daniel and his companions. Je- 
choniah, the next king of Judah, was carried away to Babylon, with 
a multitude of other captives, so that " none remained save the 
poorest people of the laud." 

21. The throne in Jerusalem was next filled by Zedekiah, who 
joined some of the surrounding nations in a rebellion against Nebu- 
chadnez' zar ; but Jerusalem', after an eighteen months' siege, whose 
miseries were heightened by the horrors of famine, was taken by 
storm at midnight. Dreadful was the carnage which ensued. Zede- 
kiah, attempting to escape, was made prisoner ; and the king of 
Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the 
eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried 
him to Babylon. Nearly all the wretched inhabitants were made 
companions of his exile. Jerusalem was burned, the temple levelled 
with the ground, and the very walls destroyed. (586 B. C.) 

22. Thus ended the kingdom of Judah, and the reign of the house 
of David. Seventy years were the children of Israel detained in 
captivity in Babylon, reckoning from the time of the first pillag- 
ing of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnez' zar, a period that had been de- 
clared in prophecy by Jeremiah, and which was distinguished by the 
visions of Nebuchadnez' zar, the prophetic declarations of Daniel, 
Belshazzar's feast, and the overthrow of the kingdom of Babylon by 
the Medes and Persians. The termination of the Captivity, as had 
been foretold by the prophets, was the act of Cyrus, the Persian, 
immediately after the conquest of Babylon. (536 B. C.) 

23. The edict of Cyrus permitted all Jews in his dominions to 
return to Palestine, and to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem. 
Only a zealous minority, however, returned, and but little progress 
had been made in the rebuilding of the temple, when the work was 
altogether stopped by an order of the next sovereign ; but during 
the reign of Darius Hystas' pes, Zerub' babel, urged by the prophets 
Hag' gai and Zechariah, obtained a new edict for the restoration of 
the temple, and after four years the work was completed, 516 years 
before the Christian era. The temple was now dedicated to 
the worship of Jehovah, the ceremonies of the Jewish law were 
restored, and never again did the Jews, as a people, relapse into 
idolatry. 



Chap. III.] PERSIAN HISTORY. 67 

[III. Roman History.] — 24. Having thus brought the events of 
Jewish history down to the time of the commencement of the war.' 
between Greece and Persia, we again turn back to take a view of the 
cotemporary history of such other nations as had begun to acquire 
historical importance during the same period. Our attention is first 
directed to Rome — to the rise of that power which was destined event- 
ually to overshadow the world. Rome is supposed to have been found- 
ed 753 years before the Christian era, about the time of the abolition 
of the hereditary archonship in Athens — twenty years before the 
commencement of the first war between Sparta and Messenia, and 
about thirty years before the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah. 
But the importance of Roman history demands a connected account, 
which can better be given after Rome has broken in upon the lino 
of history we are pursuing, by the reduction of G-reece to a Roman 
province ; and as we have already arrived at a period of correspond- 
ing importance in Persian affairs, we shall next briefly trace the 
events of Persian history down to the time when they became min- 
gled with the history of the Grecians. 

[lY. Persian History.] — 25. In the course of the preceding 
history of the Jews we have had occasion to mention the names of 
Shalmenesar, Sennacherib, and Sardanapalus, who were the last 
three kings of the united empire of Assyria, whose capital was Nine- 
veh. Not long after Sardanapalus had attacked Judah, and carried 
away its king Manas' seh into captivity, the governors of several of 
the Assyrian provinces revolted against him, and besieged him in his 
capital, when, finding himself deserted by his subjects, he destroyed 
his own life. (671 B. C.) The empire, which, during the latter part 
of the reign of Sardanapalus, had embraced Media, Persia, Babylo- 
nia, and Assyria, was then divided among the conspirators. 

26. Sixty-five years later, the Medes and Babylonians, with joint 
forces, destroyed Nineveh (B. C. 606),* and Babylon became the capi- 
tal of the reunited empire. The year after the destruction of Nine- 
veh, Nebuchadnez' zar, a name common to the kings of Babylon, as 
was Pharaoh to those of Egypt, made his first attack upon Jerusa- 
lem (B. C. 605), rendering the Jews tributary to him, and carrying 
away numbers of them into captivity, and among them the prophet 
Daniel and his companions. Nineteen years later (B. C. 586), he 

a. Clinton, i. 269. Grote, iii. 255, Note, says, " During the last ten years of the reign of Cyax- 
ares" : — and Cyaxares, the Mede, reigned from 636 to 595. 



68 ' ANCIENT HISTORY. [Past I. 

destroyed the very walls of Jerusalem and the temple itself, and 
carried away the remnant of the Jews captive to Babylon. 

27. Soon after the conquest of Judea, Nebuchadnez' zar resolved 
to take vengeance on the surrounding nations, some of whom had 
solicited the Jews to unite in a confederacy against him, but had af- 
terwards rejoiced at their destruction. These were the Am' monites, 
Moabites, E'domites, Arabians, Sidonians, Tyr' ians, Philistines, 
Egyptians, and Abyssin' ians. The subjugation of each was par- 
ticularly foretold by the prophets, and has been related both by 
sacred and profane writers. In the war against the Phoenicians, 
after a long siege of thirteen years he made himself master of insular 
Tyre, the Phoenician capital (B. C. 571), and the Tyr' ians became 
subject to him and his successors until the destruction of the Chal- 
dean monarchy by Cyrus.^ 

28. In the war against Egypt (B. C. 570), Nebuchadnez' zar laid 
the whole country waste, in accordance with previous predictions of 
the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. The prophecy of Ezekiel, that, 
after the desolations foretold, " there shall no more be a prince of 
the land of Egypt," has been verified in a remarkable manner ; for 
the kings of Egypt were made tributary, and grievously oppressed, 
first by the Babylonians, and next by the Persians ; and since the 
rule of the latter, Egypt has successively been governed by foreigners 
— ^by the Macedonians, the Bomans, the Mamelukes, and lastly, by 
the Turks, who possess the land of the Pharaohs to this day. 

29. It was immediately after his return from Egypt that Nebu- 
chadnez'zar, flushed with the brilliancy of his conquests, set up a 
golden image, and commanded all the people to fall down and wor- 
ship it. (B. C. 569.) Notwithstanding the rebuke which his impiety 
received on this occasion, after he had adorned Babylon with mag- 
nificent works, again the pride of his heart was exhibited, for as he 
walked in his palace he said, in exultation, " Is not this great Baby- 
lon that I have built for the head of the kingdom, by the might of 
my power, and for the honor of my majesty ?" But in the same 
hour that he had spoken he was struck with lunacy, and all his glory 
departed from him. Of his dreams, and their prophetic interpreta- 
tion by Daniel, vve shall have occasion to speak, as the predictions are 
successively verified in the progress of history. 

a. The common statement that it was the inland town that was reduced by Nebuchadnez'- 
zar, and that most of the inliabitants had previously withdrawn to an island, where they built 
"New Tyre," seems to be erroneous. See Grote's Greece, iii. 266-7. 



Chap. Ill] PERSIAN HISTORY. 69 

30. Not long after the reign of Nebuchadnez' zar, we find Bel- 
shaz' zar, probably a grandson of the former, on the throne of Baby- 
lon. Nothing is recorded of him but the circumstances of his 
death, which are related in the fifth chapter of Daniel. He was 
probably slain in a conspiracy of his nobles. (B. C. 553.) In the 
meantime, the kingdom of Media^ had risen to eminence under the 
successive reigns of Phraor' tes, Cyax' ares, and Asty' ages,^ the for- 
mer of whom is supposed to be the Ahasuerus mentioned in the book 
of Daniel.^ While some writers mention a successor of Asty' ages, 
Cyax'ares II., who has been thought to be the same as the Darius 
of Scripture, others assert that Asty' ages was the last of the Me- 
dian kings. In accordance with the latter and now generally-received 
account, Cyrus, a grandson of Asty' ages, but whose father was a 
Persian, roused the Persian tribes against the ruling Modes, defeated 
Asty' ages, and transferred the supreme power to the Persians. 
(558 B. C.)b 

31. Cyrus the Great,^ as he is often called, is generally considered 
the founder of the Persian empire. Soon after his accession to 
the throne his dominions were invaded by Croe' sus, king of Lydia ; 
but Cyrus defeated him in the great battle of Thymbria, and after- 
wards, besieging him in his own capital of Sardis, took him prisoner, 
and obtained possession of all his treasures. (B. C. 546.) The sub- 
jugation of the Grecian cities of Asia Minor by the Persians soon 
followed. Cyrus next laid siege to Babylon, which still remained an 
independent city in the heart of his empire. Babylon soon fell be- 
neath his power, and it has been generally asserted that he efi"ected 
the conquest by turning the waters of the Euphrates from their chan- 
nel, and marching his troops into the city through the dry bed of the 
stream ; but this account has been doubted, while it has been thoiight 
quite as probable that he owed his success to some internal revolu- 
tion, which put an end to the dynasty of the Babylonian kings. 
(B. C. 536.) The prophetic declarations of the final and utter de- 

1. Media^ the boundaries of which varied greatly at dififerent tiines, embraced the country 
immediately south and soulh-v/est of the Caspian Sea, and north of the early Persia. (Map 
No. V.) 

2. These kings were probably in a measure subordinate to the ruling king at Babylon. 

a. Daniel, ix. 1. Hale's Analysis, iv. 81. 

b. Niebuhr's Lect. on Ancient Hist. i. 135. Grote's Greece, iv. 183. 

c. The accounts of the early history of Cyrus, as derived from Xen' ophon, Plerod' otus, Ct6sias, 
&c., are very contradictory. The account of Herod' otus is now generally preferred, as con- 
taining a greater proportion of historical truth than the others. Grote calls the Cyropoe' dia of 
Xen' ophon a "philosophical novel." Niebuhr says, "No rational man, in our days, can look 
upon Xen' ophon's history of Cyrus in any other light than that of a romance." 



70 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

struction of Babylon, wliicli was eventually to be made a desolate 
^aste — a possession for the bittern — a retreat for the wild beasts of 
the desert and of the islands — to be filled with jdooIs of water — and 
to be inhabited no more from generation to generation, have been fully 
verified. 

32. In the year that Babylon was taken, Cyrus issued the famous 
decree which permitted the Jews to return to their own land, and 
to rebuild the city and temple of Jerusalem — events which had been 
foretold by the prophet Isaiah more than a century before Cyrus 
was born. Cyrus is sujoposed to have lived about seven years after 
the taking of Babylon — directing his chief attention to the means 
of increasing the prosperity of his kingdom. The manner of his 
death is a disputed point in history, but in the age of Strabo his 
tomb bore the inscription : " man, I am Cyrus, who founded the 
Persian empire : envy me not then the little earth which covers my 
remains." 

33. Camby' ses succeeded his father on the throne of Persia. 
(530 B. C.) Intent on carrying out the ambitious designs of Cyrus, 
he invaded and conquered Egypt, although the Egyptian king was 
aided by a force of G-recian auxiliaries. The power of the Persians 
was also extended over several African tribes : even the Greek col- 
ony of Cja-enaica^ was forced to pay tribute to Camby' ses, and the 
Greek cities of Asia Minor remained c[uiet under Persian governors ; 
but an army which Camby' ses sent over the Libyan desert to sub- 
due the little oasis where the temple of Jupiter Am' mon'^ jvas the 
centre of an independent community, was buried in the sands ; 
and another army which the king himself led up the Nile against 
Ethiopia, came near perishing from hunger. The Persian king- 
would have attempted the conquest of the rising kingdom of Car- 
thage, but his Phoenician allies or subjects, who constituted his naval 
power, were unwilling to lend their aid in destroying the indepen- 
dence of their own colony, and Camby' ses was forced to abandon the 
project. 

34. On the death of Camby' ses (B. C. 521), one Smer' dis, an 

1. Cyrendica, a country on the African coast of the Mediterranean, corresponded with the 
western portion of the modern Barca. It was sometimes called Pentap' nils, from its having 
five Grecian cities of note in it, of which Cyrene was the capital. (See p. 95, also Map No. V.) 

2. The Temple of Jupiter Jlvi' rnon was situated in what is now called tlie Oasis of Siwah, a 
fertile spot in the desert, three hundred miles south-vv'est from Cairo. The time and the cir- 
cumstances of the existence of tliis temple are unknown, but, like that of Delphi, it was famed 
for its treasures. A well sixty feet deep, which has been discovered iu Ihe oasis, is supposed 
to mark the site of the t«m])le. 



Chap. III.] PERSI^VN HISTORY. 71 

impostor, a pretended son of Cyrus, seized the throne ; but the Per- 
sian nobles soon formed a conspiracy against him, killed him in his 
palace, and chose one of their own number to reign in his stead. 
The new monarch assumed the old Median title of royalty, and is 
known in history as Darius, or Darius Hystas' pes. Babylon having 
revolted, he was engaged twenty months in the siege of the city 
which was finally taken by the artifice of a Persian nobleman, who, 
pretending to desert to the enemy, gained their confidence, and 
having obtained the command of an important post in the city, 
opened the gates to the Persians : Darius put to death three thou- 
sand of the citizens, and ordered the one hundred gates to be pulled 
down, and the walls of the proud city to be demolished, that it might 
never after be in a condition to rebel against him. The favor which 
this monarch showed the Jews, in permitting them to rebuild the 
walls of Jerusalem, has already been mentioned. 

35. The attention of Darius was next turned towards the Scyth- 
ians,^ then a European nation, who inhabited the country along the 
western borders of the Euxine, from the Tan' ais or Don^ to the north- 
ern boundaries of Thrace.^ Darius indeed overran their country, 
but without finding an enemy who would meet him in battle ; for the 
Scythiaiis were wise enough to retreat before the invader, and deso- 
late the country through which he directed his course. When the 
supplies of the Persians had been cut off on every side, and their 
strength wasted in useless pursuit, they were glad to seek safety by 
a hasty retreat. 

36. The next important events in the history of Darius we find 
connected with the revolt, and final subjugation, of the Greek colonies 
of Asia Minor, an account of which has already been given. Still 
Darius was not a conqueror like Cyrus or Camby' ses, but seems 
to have aimed rather at consolidating and securing his empire, than 

1. Scythia is a name given by the early Greeks to the country on the northern and western 
borders of the Euxine. In the time of the first Ptolemy, however, the early Scythia, together 
with the whole region from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian, had changed its name to Sarmatia, 
while the entire north of Asia beyond the Himalaya mountains was denominated Scythia. 
(.Map Nos. V. and IX.) 

2. The Don (anciently Tan' ais), rising in Central Russia, flows south-east until it approaches 
within about thirty-six miles of the Volga, when it turns to the south-west, and enters the 
north-eastern extremity of the Sea of Azof (anciently Pulus Mceotis). (Map No. IX.) 

3. Thrace, embracing nearly the same as the modern Turkish province of Rumilia, was 
bounded on the north by the Htcmus mountains, on the east by the Euxine, on the south by 
the Propon' tis and the .JE' gcan Sea, and on the west by Macedonia. Its principal river was 
the Hebrus (now Maritza), and its largest towns, excepting those in the Thracian Cherson6su9, 
(see p. 96.) were Hadrianopolie and Byzantium. (J\fnp No. III. and IX.) 



72 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

at enlarging it. The dominions bequeathed him by his predecessors 
comprised many countries, united under one government only by 
their subjection to the will and the arbitrary exactions of a common 
ruler ; but Darius first organized them into one empire, by dividing 
the whole into twenty satrapies or provinces, and assigning to each 
its proper share in the burdens of government. 

37. Under Darius the Persian empire had now attained its great- 
est extent, embracing, in Asia, all that, at a later period, was con- 
tained in Persia proper and Turkey ; in Africa, taking in Egypt as 
far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as Barca ; 
and in Europe, part of Thrace and Macedonia — thus stretching from 
the ]Si' gean Sea to the Indus, and from the plains of Tartary^ to 
the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire against whose united 
power a few Grecian communities were to contend for the preserva- 
tion of their very name and existence. The results of the contest 
may be learned from the following chapter. (See Map No. YII.) 

1. Tartary is a name of modern origin, applied to that extensive portion of Central Asia 
which extends eastward from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY, 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY. 
SECTION I. 

GRECIAN HISTORY FROM THE BEGINNING OK THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA TO THE ES- 
TABLISHMENT OF PHILIP ON THE THRONE OF MACEDON : 

490 TO 860 B. c. = 130 years. 

ANALYSIS. First Persian War. 1. Preparations of Darius for the conquest of Greece. 
Mardonius. Destruction of the Persian fleet, [Mount A' thos.] Return of Mard6nius.—t3. F.e- 
newed preparations of Darius. Heralds sent to Greece. Tlieir treatment by the Athenians and 
Spartans. The yEgin6tans. [^gina.] — 3. Persian fleet sails for Greece. Islands submit. 
Eubce'a. Persians at Mar' atlion. The Platse'ans aid the Athenians. Spartans absent. 
[Mar'alhon. Plata;'a.]— 4. Tlie Athenian army. Hovv commanded.— 5. Battle of Mar' atho!). 
—6, Remarks on the battle. Legends of the battle.— 7. The war terminated. Subsequent 
lilstory of Miltiades. [Paros.] Themis' toclea and Aristides. Their characters. Banish- 
ment of the latter. [Ostracism.]— 9. Death of Darius. Second Persian War. Xerxes in- 
vades Greece. Opposed by Leon' idas. [Thermop' yla;.] Anecdote of Dien' eces.— 10. Treachery. 
Leon' idas dismisses his allies. Self-devotion of tlie Greeks. — 11. Eurytus and Aristodumus. 
— 12. The Athenians desert Athens, which is burned by the enemy. [Trezene.] The Greeks 
fortify the Corinthian Isthmus. — 13. The Persian fleet at Sal' amis. Eurybiades, Themis' tocles, 
Jtnd Aristides.— 14. Battle of Sal' amis. Flight of Xerxes. [Hel' lespont.] Baf.le of Plalte'a 
—of Myc'ale. [Myc'ale.] Death of Xerxes.— LI. Athens rebuilt. Banishment of Themis- 
tocles. Cimon and Pausanias. The Persian dependencies. Ionian revolt. [Cy'prus. By- 
zan' tium.] — 16. Final peace with Persia. — 17. Dissensions among the Grecian States. Per- 
icles. Jealousy of Sparta, and growing povter of Athens.- 18. Power and character of Sparla. 
Earthquake at Sparta. Revolt of the H61ots. Third Messe'man War. Migration of the 
Messenians. — 19. Athenians defeated at Tan' agra. [Tan' agra.] Subsequent victory gained by 
the Athenians. 

20. Causes which opened the First Peloponne' sian War. [Corey' ra. Potid-tC' a.] — 21. 
The Spartan army ravages At' tica. The Athenian navy desolates the coast of the Peloponn''- 
sus. [Meg'ara.] — 22. Second invasion of At' tica. The plague at Athens, and death of Per- 
icles. Potidae'a surrenders to Athens, and Platje'a to Sparta. — 23. The peace of Nicias. Pre- 
texts for renewing the struggle.— 24. Character of Alcibiades. His artifices. Reduction of 
Melos. [M610S.] — 25. The Sicilian Expedition. Its object. [Sicily. Syracuse.] Revolt 
and flight of Alcibiades. — 26. Operations of Nicias, and disastrous result of the expedition. 

27. Second Peloponne' sian "War. Revoltof the Athenian allies. Intrigues of Alcibiade?. 
Revolution at Athens. [Er6tria Cys' icus.] Return of Alcibiades.— 28. He is again banished. 
The affairs of Sparta are retrieved by Lj^san' der. Cyrus the Persian. — 29. The Athenians aro 
defeated at Ai.' gos-Pot' amos. Trea'anent of the prisoners.— 30. Disastrous state of Athenian 
ufiiiirs. Submission of Athens, and close of the war, — 31. Change of government at Alheus. 
The Thirty Tyrants overthrown. The rule of the democracy restored. — 32. Character, accr.sn- 
tion, and death of Soc' rates.— 33. The designs of Cjtus the Persian. He is aided by the Greeks, 
—34. Result of his expedition.— 35. Famous retreat of the Ten Thousand.— 36. The Creek cities 
of Asia are involved in a war with Persia. The Third Peloponne' sian War. [Coronea.] 
The peace of Antal' cidas. [Im' brus, Lem' nos, and Scy' rus.]— 37. The designs of the Persian 
king promoted by the jealousy of the Greeks. Athens aud Sparta— how affected by the peace. 
—38. Sparta is involved in new wars War with Mantinea. "With Olyn'thus. [."Mantinea. 



71 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

Olyn' thus.] Seizure of the Theban citadel.— 39. The political morality of the Spartans.— 40. 
The Theban citadel recovered. Pelop' idas and Epaminon' das. Events of the Theban war. 
[Tcg'yra. Lcuc'tra.] — 41. The Skoond Sacred War. [First Sacred War.] Causes of the 
Second Sacred War. [Phocis.] — 42. The parties to the war. [Locriaus.] Cruelties practised. 
Philip of Maccdon. 

1. After the subjugation of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, Darius 
made active preparations for the conquest of all Greece. A mighty 

I. FIRST PER- armament was fitted out and intrusted to the command 
siAN WAR. of his son-in-law Mardonius, who, leading the land force in 
person through Thrace and Macedonia, succeeded, after being once routed 
by a night attack,^ in subduing those countries ; but the Persian fleet, 
which was desigTied to sweep the islands of the JR' gean, was checked 
in its progress by a violent stonn which it encountered off Mount 
A' thos\ and which was thought to have destroyed three hundred ves- 
sels and twenty thousand lives. Weakened by these disasters, Mar- 
donius abruptly terminated the campaign and returned to Asia. 

2. Darius soon renewed his preparations for the invasion of Greece, 
and, while his forces were assembling, sent heralds through the 
Grecian cities, demanding earth and water, as tokens of submission. 
The smaller States, intimidated by his power, submitted ;^ but Athens 
and Sparta haughtily rejected the demands of the eastern monarch, 
and put his heralds to death with cruel mockery, throwing one into a 
pit and another into a well, and bidding them take thence their earth 
and water. The Spartans threatened to make war upon the ^gine- 
tans" for having basely submitted to the power of Persia, and com- 
pelled them to send hostages to Athens.^ 

1. Jilount A' thos is a lofty summit, n>ore than six thousand feet high, on the most eastern of 
three narrow peninsulas which extend from Macedonia into the ^' gean sea. The peninsula 
which is about twenty-five miles in lougth by about four in breadth, has long been occupied 
in modern times by a number of monks of the Greeic Church, who live in a kii>d of fortified 
monasteries, about twenty in number. No females are admitted within this peninsula, whose 
modern name, derived from its supposed sanctity, is Monte Santo, "sacred mountain." 
(Map No. I.) 

% ^giiiay (now Egina or Eiigia,} was an island containing about fifty square miles, in the 
centre of the Saron' ic (iutf, (now Gulf of Athens,) between Attica and Ar'golis, and sixleeii 
miles south-west from Athens. The remains of a temple of Jupiter in the northern part of 
the island are among the most interesting of the Grecian ruins. Of its thirty-six columns, 
twenty-five were recently standing. (Maj^ No. I.) 

a. By the Brj'gi, a Thracian tribe. Mardonius woimde<l 

b. Among them, probably, the Thebans and Tlicssalians ; abo most of the islands, but not 
Eubce' a and Nax' os. Tlie Persians desolated Nax' oa on their way across the JE' gean. 

c. At this time Thebes and ^^gina had been at war with Athens fourteen years. Ar' gos, 
which had contested with Sparta the supremacy of Greece, had recently been subdued ; and 
Sparta v/a-s acknowledged to be tlie head of the political union of Greece against the Per- 
sians. Crete's Greece, iv. 311-328. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 75 

3. In the third year after the first disastrous campaign, a Persian 
fleet of six hundred ships, conveying an army of a hundred and twenty 
thousand men, commanded by the generals Datis and Artapher' nes, 
and guided by the exiled tyrant and traitor Hip' pias, directed its 
course towards the Grecian shores. (B. C. 490.) Several islands of 
the M' gean submitted without a struggle ; Euboe' a was punished for 
the aid it had given the lonians in their rebellion ; and without farther 
opposition the Persian host advanced to the plains of Mar' athon,^ 
within twenty miles of Athens. The Athenians probably called on 
the Platas' ans'^ as well as the Spartans for aid :^ — the former sent 
their entire force of a thousand men ; but the latter, influenced by 
jealousy or superstition, refused to send their proffered aid before the 
full of the moon. 

4. In this extremity the Athenian army, numbering only ten thou- 
sand men, and commanded by ten generals, marched against the enemy. 
Five of the ten generals had been afraid to hazard a battle, but the 
arguments^ of Miltiades, one of their number, finally prevailed upon 
the polemarch Callim' achus to give his casting vote in favor of fight- 
ing. The ten generals were to command the whole army successively, 
each for a day. Those who had seconded the advice of Miltiades 
were willing to resigii their turns to him, but he waited till his own 
day arrived, when he drew up the little army in order of battle. 

1. Mar' athon, which still retains its ancient name, is a small town of Attica, twenty milea 
northeast from Athens, and about three miles from the sea-coast, or Bay of Mar' athon. The 
plain in which the battle was fought is about five miles in length and two in breadth, inclosed 
on the land side by steep slopes descending from the higher ridges of Penlcl' icus and Paros, 
and divided into two unequal parts by a small stream which falls into the Bay, Towards the 
middle of the plain may still be seen a mound of earth, twenty-five feet in height, which was 
raised over the bodies of the Athenians who fell in the battle. In the marsh near the sea. 
coast, also, the remains of trophies and marble monuments are still visible. The names of 
the one hundred and ninety-two Athenians who v^ere slain were inscribed on ten pillars 
erected on the battle-field. {Map No. I.) 

2. PlatcB' a, a city of Bceotia, now wholly in ruins, was situated on the northern side of the 
Cithse' ron mountains, seven miles south from Thebes. This city has acquired an immortality 
of renown from its having given its name to the great battle fought in its vicinity in the year 
479 B. C. between the Persians under Mardoniug, and the Greeks under Pausanias the Spar- 
tan. (See p. 80.) From the tenth of the spoils taken from the Persians on that occasion, and 
presented to the shrine of Delphi, a golden tripod was made, supported by a brazen pillar 
resembling three serpents twined together. This identical brazen pillar may still be seen in 
the Hippodrome of Constantinople. (Map No. I.) 

a. Thirwall says : " It is probable that they summoned the Platra'ans." Cro'esays: "We 
are not told that they had been invited." 

b. Herod' otus describes this debate as having occurred at Mar' athon, afler the Greeks had 
taken post in sight of the Persians ; while Cornelius Nepoa says it occurred before the army 
left Athens. Thirwall appears to follow the former: Grote declares his preference for the 
latter, as the most reasonable. 



76 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part! 

5. Tiie Persians were extended in a line across the middle of the 
plain, having their best troops in the centre. The Athenians were 
drawn up in a line opposite, hut having their main strength in the 
extreme wings of their army. The Greeks made the attack, and, as 
had been foreseen by Miltiades, their centre was soon broken, while 
the extremities of the enemy's line, made up of motley and undisci- 
plined bands of all nations, were routed, and driven towards the shore, 
and into the adjoining morasses. Hastily concentrating his two 
wings, Miltiades next directed their united force against the flanks of 
the Persian centre, which, deeming itself victorious, was taken com- 
pletely by surprise. In a few minutes victory decided in favor of the 
G-reeks. The Persians fled in disorder to their ships; but many 
perished in the marshes ; the shore was strewn with their dead, — and 
seven of their ships were destroyed. The loss of the Persians was 
6,400 : that of the x\thenians, not including the Platas' ans, only 192. 

6. Such was the famous battle of Mar' athon ; but the glory of 
the victory is not to be measured wholly by the disparity of the 
numbers engaged, when compared with the result. The Persians 
were strong in the terror of their name, and in the renown of their 
conquests ; and it required a most heroic resolution in the Athenians 
to face a danger which they had not yet learned to despise. The 
victory was viewed by the people as a deliverance vouchsafed to the 
G-recians by the gods themselves : the marvellous legends of the battle 
attributed to the heroes prodigies of valor ; and represented Theseus 
and Her' cules as sharing in the fight, and dealing death to the flying 
barbarians ; while to this day the peasant believes the field of Mar' a- 
thon to be haunted with spectral warriors, whose shouts are heard at 
midnight, borne on the wind, and rising above the din of battle. 

7. The victory obtained by the Greeks at Mar' athon terminated 
the first war with Persia. Soon after the Persian defeat, Miltiades, 
who at first received all the honors which a grateful people could be- 
stow, experienced a fate which casts a melancholy gloom over his 
history. Being unfortunate in an expedition which he led agamst Pa- 
ros,^ and which he induced the Athenians to intrust to him, without 
informing them of its destination, he was accused of having deceived 

1. Pdros is an island of the ^'gcan sea, of the group of the Cyc' lades, abont scvcnty-fivo 
miles south-east from Attica. It is about twelve miles in length by eight in breiidth, rugged 
and uneven, but generally very fertile. Pares was famous in antiquity for its marble, although 
that obtained from Mount Pentericua in Attica was of the purest while. In modern times 
Paros has become distinguished for the discovery there of the celebrated "Parian or Arunde- 
lian Chronicle," cut in a marble slab, and purporihig to be a chronological account of Grecian 



Chap. IV.j GRECIAN HISTORY. 77 

the people, or, as some say, of having received a bribe. Unable to 
defend liis cause before the people on account of an injury which he 
had received at Paros, he was impeached before the popular judica- 
ture as worthy of death ; and although the proposition of his accusers 
was rejected, he was condemned to pay a fine of jfifty talents. A few 
days later Miltiades died of his womid, and tlie fine was paid by his 
son Cimon. 

8. After the death of Miltiades, Themis' tocles and Aristides be- 
come, for a time, the most prominent men among the Athenians. The 
former, a most able statesman, being influenced by ambitious motives, 
aimed to make Athens great and powerful, that he himself might rise 
to greater eminence with the growing fortunes of the state ; — the latter, 
a pure patriot, had, like Themis' tocles, the good of Athens at heart, 
but, unlike his rival, he was wholly destitute of selfish ambition, and 
knew no cause but that of justice and the public welfare. His known 
probity acquired for him the appellation of The Just ; but his very 
integrity made for him secret enemies, who, although they charged him 
with no crimes, were yet able to procure from the people the penalty of 
banishment against him by ostracism.^ His removal left Themis' tocles 
in possession of almost undivided power at Athens, and threw upon 
him chiefly the responsibility of the measure for resisting another 
Persian invasion, with which the Grreeks were now threatened. 

9. Darius made great preparations for invading Greece in person, 
when death put an end to his ambitious projects. Ten years after 
the battle of Mar'athon, Xerxes, the son and successor jj second 
of Darius, being determined to execute the plans of his Persian war. 
father, entered Greece at the head of an army tlie greatest the world 
has ever seen, and whose numbers have been estimated at more than 
two millions of fighting men. This immense force, passing through 
Thes' saly, had arrived, without opposition, at the strait of Thermop'- 
yl^e,^ where Xerxes found a body of eight thousand men, command- 
history from the time of C6crops to the year 2Gt B. C. The pretence of Miltiades in attacking 
Pares was that the inhabitants had aided the Persians; but Herod' otus assures us that his 
real motive was a private grudge against a Parian citizen. The injury of which he died was 
caused by a fall that he received while attempting to visit by night, a Parian priestess of Ceres, 
who had promised to reveal to him a secret that would place Paros in his power. {J\!ap No. III.) 

1. The mode of Ostracism was as follows: The people having assembled, each man took a 
shell {ostralion) and wrote on it the name of the person whom he wished to have banished. 
If the number of votes thus given was less than six thousand, the ostracism was void ; but if 
more, then the person whose name was on the greatest number of shells was sent into banish 
ment for ten years. 

2. Thermop' ylce is a narrow defile on the western shore of the Gulf which lies between 
Euboe'a and Thessaly, and is almost the only road by which Greece can be entered on the 



78 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I. 

ed bj the Spartan king Leon' iclas, prepared to dispute the passage. 
Xerxes sent a herald to the G-recks, commanding them to lay down 
their arms; but Leon' idas replied -with true Spartan brevit}^, "come 
and take them." When one said that the Persians were so numerous 
that their very darts would darken the sun, " Then," replied Dieneces, 
a Spartan, "we shall fight in the shade." 

1 0. After repeated and unayailing efforts, during two days, to break 
the Grecian lines, the confidence of Xerxes had changed into de- 
spondence and perplexity, when a deserter revealed to him, for a large 
reward, a secret path over the mountains, by which he was enabled 
to throw a force of twenty thousand men into the rear of the Grre- 
cians. Leon' idas, seeing that his post was no longer tenable, dis- 
missed all his allies who were willing to retire, retaining with him 
only three hundred fellow Spartans, with some Thes' plans and The- 
bans, in all about a thousand men. The Spartans were forbidden by 
their laws ever to flee from an enemy ; and Leon' idas and his coun- 
trymen, and their Thes' plan allies,^'' prepared to sell their lives as 
dearly as possible. Falling suddenly upon the enemy, they pene- 
trated to the very centre of the Persian host, slaying two brothers of 
Xerxes, and fighting with the valor of desperation, until every 
one of their number had fallen. A monument was afterwards 
erected on the spot, bearing the following inscription : " Gro stranger, 
and tell at Lacedaemon that we died here in obedience to her 



11. Previous to the last attack of the Spartans, two of their num- 
ber, Ei'irytus and Aristodemus, were absent on leave, suffering from 
a severe complaint of the ejes. Eurytus, being informed that the 
hour for the detachment was come, called for his armor, and direct- 
ing his servant to lead him to his place in the ranks, fell foremost in 
the fight. Aristodemus, overpowered with physical suffering, was 
carried to Sparta ; but he was denounced as a coward for not imi- 

norlh-east, by way of Thessaly. This famous pass, which is shxit in between steep preci- 
pices and the sea, at tiie eastern extremity of Mount CE'ta, is about five miles in length, and, 
■where narrowest, was not anciently, according to Herod' otus, more than half a plethron, or 
fifty feet across, although Livy says sixty paces. The pass has long been gradually widening, 
however, by the deposits of soil brought down by the mountain streams. In tlie narrowest 
part of the pass were hot springs, from which the defile derives its name. {Thermos, "hot," 
and pule, a " gate" or " pass.") (Map No. I.) 

a. The Thebans took part in the beginning of the fight, to save appearances, but finally sur- 
rendered to the Persians, loudly proclaiming that they had come to Thermop'ylae against their 
consent. The story that Leon' idas made a night attack, and penetrated nearly to the royal 
tent, ia a mere fiction. (See G-rote, v 92. Note.) 



Chap, IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 79 

tatiug his comrade — no one would speak or communicate with him, 
or even grant him a light for his fire. After a year of bitter dis- 
grace, he was at length enabled to retrieve his honor at the battle 
ofPlatse'a, where he was slain, after surpassing all his comrades in 
heroic and even reckless valor. ^ 

12. After the fall of Leon' idas, the Persians ravaged At' tica, and 
soon appeared before Athens, which they burned to the ground, but 
which had previously been deserted of its inhabitants, — those able to 
bear arms having retired to the island of Sal' amis, while the old and 
infirm, the women and children, had found shelter in Trczene,^ a 
city of Ar' golis. The allied Grrecians took possession of the Corin- 
thian Isthmus, which they fortified by a wall, and committed to the 
defence of Cleom' brotus, a brother of Leon' idas, 

13. Xerxes next made preparations to annihilate the power of the 
Grecians in a naval engagement, and sent his whole fleet to block up 
that of the Grreeks in the narrow strait of Sal' amis. Eurybiades, 
the Spartan, who commanded the Grecian fleet, was in favor of sail- 
ing to the isthmus, that the naval and land forces might act in con- 
Junction, but Themis' tocl^s finally prevailed upon him to hazard an 
engagement, and his counsels were enforced by Aristides, now in the 
third year of his exile, who crossed over in a small boat from ^gina 
with intelligence of the exact position of the Persian fleet ; — a cir- 
cumstance that at once put an end to the rivalry between the two 
Athenians, and led to the restoration of Aristides. 

14. Xerxes had caused a ro3^al throne to be erected on one of the 
neighboring heights, where, surrounded by his army, he might wit- 
ness the battle of Sal' amis, in which he was confident of victory ; but 
he had the misfortune to see his magnificent navy almost utterly an- 
nihilated. Terrified at the result, he hastily fled across the Hel'les- 
pont,''' and retired into his own dominions, leaving Mardonius, at the 
head of three hundred thousand men, to complete, if possible, the 
conquest of Greece. Mardonius passed the winter in Thes'saly, 
but in the following summer his army was totally defeated and hitii- 

i. Trez£ne was oear tlxe sauth-^astgrn exlfemity of Ar' golis. Its ruins may be seen near th<s 
email modern village of Damala. 

2. The HeV lespont (now called Dardanelles\ is the narrow strait which connects tlie sea of 
JMarmora with tl>e M" gaan. It is about forty miles in length, and varies in breadth from three 
quarters of a mile to ten miles. The Dardanelles^ from which the modern name of the strait 
js derived, are castles^ or forts, built on its banks. The strait, being the key to Cksnstaiitinopie 
and the Black Sea, has been very strongly fortified on both sides by the Turks. {Map No. IV.) 

a. GrotCj V. 95» 



so ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

self slain in the battle of Plata?' a. (B. C. 479.) Two hundred thou- 
sand Persians fell in battle, and only a small remnant escaped across 
the Hel' lespont — the last Persian army that gained a footing on the 
(Irecian territory. On the very day of the battle of Platae' a, the re- 
mains of the Persian fleet which had escaped at Sal' amis, and which 
had been drawn up on shore at Myc' ale/ on J;he coast of Ionia, were 
burned by the Grecians, and Tigranes, the Persian commander, and 
forty thousand of his men, slain. Sis years later the career of Xerxes 
was terminated by assassination, when he was succeeded on the 
throne by his son, Artaxerx' es Longim' anus. 

15. In the meantime, Athens had been rebuilt by the vigor and 
energy of Themis' tocles, and the Pirse' us fortified, and connected, 
by long walls, with the town, while Sparta looked with ill-disguised 
jealousy upon the growing power of a rival city. But the eminence 
which Themis' tocles had attained provoked the envy of some of his 
countrymen, and he was condemned to exile by the same process of 
ostracism which he himself had before directed against Aristides. 
Being afterwards charged with conspiring against the liberties of 
Greece, he sought refuge in Persia, where he is said to have ended 
his life by poison. Cimon, the son of MiTtiades, succeeded Themis'- 
tocles in the chief direction of Athenian affairs, while Pausanias, the 
hero of Platae' a, was at the head of the Spartans. Under these 
leaders the confederate Greeks waged successful war upon the de- 
pendencies of Persia in the islands of the JE' gean, and on the coasts 
of Thrace and Asia Minor. The Ionian cities were aided in a suc- 
cessful revolt ; Cy' prus" v/as wrested from the power of the Per- 
sians ; and Byzan' tium,^ already a flourishing city, fell, with all its 
wealth, into the hands of the Grecians. (B. C. 476.) 

16. Cimon carried on a successful v/ar against Persia many years 
later, during which the commercial power and wealth of the Athe- 
nians were continually increasing ; but both parties finally becoming 
tired of the contest, after the death of Oimon a treaty of peace was 
concluded with the Persian monarch, which stipulated that the 16- 



I. .Myr' ale was a promontory of loniy in Asia iMinor, opposite the southern extremity of the 
inland of Samoa. (Jilap No. IV.) 

•2. Ct/' ;?r?is is a large and fertile island near the north-eastern angle of the Mediterranean, 
between Asia Minor and Syria :— greatest length, one hundred and thirty-two miles ; average 
breadth, from thirty to thirty-five miles. Under the oppressive rale of the Turks, who con- 
q\iered the island from the Venetians in 1571, agriculture was greatly neglected, and the popu- 
lation reduced to one-seventh of its former number. (Maps Nos. IV. and V.) 

3. By-.nn' fhim.no-^y Constanthtnplr. See description, p. 21S. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 81 

nian cities in Asia should be left in the free enjoyment of their inde- 
pendence, and that no Persian army should come within three days' 
march of the sea-coast.^ 

17. While the war with Persia continued, a sense of common dan- 
gers had united the Greeks in a powerftd and prosperous confederacy, 
but now jealousies broke out between several of the rival cities, 
particularly Athens and Sparta, which led to political dissensions 
and civil wars, the cause of the final ruin of the Grrecian republics. 
The authority of Cimon among the Athenians had gradually yielded 
to the growing influence of his rival Per' icles, who, bold, artful, and 
eloquent, — a general, jDhilosopher, and statesman, — managed the 
multitude at his will, and by his patronage of literature and the arts, 
and the extension of the Athenian power, raised Athens to the sum- 
mit of her renown. Sparta looked on with ill-disguised jealousy as 
island after island in the ^' gean yielded to the sway of Athens, and 
saw not with unconcern the colonies of her rival peopling the wind- 
ing shores of Thrace and Macedon. Athens had become the mis- 
tress of the seas, while her commerce engrossed nearly the whole 
trade of the Mediterranean. 

18. But Sparta was also powerful in her resources, and in the 
military renown and warlike character of her people, and she dis- 
dained the luxuries that were enervating the Athenians. Complaints 
and reclamations were frequent on both sides ; and occasions for 
war, when sought by both parties, are not long delayed. But while 
the Spartans were secretly favoring the enemies of Athens, although 
still in avowed allegiance with her, Laconia was laid waste by an 
earthquake (464 B. C), and Sparta became a heap of ruins. A re- 
volt of the Helots followed ; Sparta itself was endan- ^^^ ^^j^^^^ 
gered ; and the remnant of the Messenians, making a messenian 
vigorous effort to recover their freedom, fortified the ^''^^* 
memorable hill of Ithome, the ancient citadel of their fathers. 
Here, for a long time, they valiantly defended themselves ; and the 
Spartans were compelled to invoke the Athenians and others to their 
assistance. (461 B. C.) After several years' duration, the third and 
last Messenian war was terminated by an honorable capitulation of 
the Messenians, who were allowed to retire from the Peloponnesus 

a. The story of this famous treaty, hoM'ever, generally called the Cimonian treaty, and attrib- 
uted to Cimon himself, has been regarded by some writers as a fiction, which, originating in 
the schools of Greek rhetoricians, Avas transmitted thence through the orators to the historians. 
(See Thirwall, i. p. 305, and note.) Grote, however, v. 33G-42, admits the reality of the treaty, 
but places it after the death of Cimon. 

6 



82 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I. 

witli their property and tlieir families, and to join the Athenian col- 
ony of Naiipac'" tiis. 

19. While the Athenians were engaged in hostilities with several 
of their northern neighbors, Sparta sent her forces into the Boeo- 
tian territory, to counteract the growing influence of Athens in 
that quarter. The indignant Athenians marched out to meet them, 
but were worsted in the battle of Tan' agra.' In the following year, 
however, they were enabled to wipe off the stain of their defeat by a 
victory over the aggregate Theban and Boeotian forces then in alli- 
ance with Sparta ; whereby the authority and influence of Sparta 
were again confined to the Peloponnesus. 

20. Other events soon occurred to embitter the animosities of the 
rival States, and prepare the way for a general war. Corinth, a 
Dorian city favorable to Sparta, having become involved in a war 
with Corey' ra,^ one of her colonies, the latter applied for and ob- 
tained assistance from Athens. Potidae' a,^ a Corinthian colony trib- 
utary to Athens, soon after revolted, at the same time claiming and 
obtaining the assistance of the Corinthians ; and thus in two in- 
stances were Athens and Corinth, though nominally at peace, brought 
into conflict with each other as open enemies. The Corinthians, nov>r 
accusing Athens of interfering between them and their colonies, 

IV Fir ST charged her with violating a treaty of the confederated 
pELOPoxNE- States of the Peloponnesus, and easily engaged the Lace- 
siAN WAR. (^rgi^^^QJajis iQ tbeir quarrel. Such were the immediate 
causes which opened the First Feloponnesian War. 

21. The minor States of Greece took sides as inclination or inter- 
est prompted, and nearly all were involved in the contest. The 
Spartans and their confederates were the most powerful by land, 
the Athenians by sea ; and each began the war by displaying its 
strength on its peculiar element. While a Spartan army of sixty 
thousand, led by their king, x\rchidamus, ravaged At' tica, and sat 
down before the very gates of Athens, the naval force of the Atheu- 

1. Tan'afrra,i\ city nriir the south-eastern extremity of Bceolia, was situated on an emi- 
nence on the northern bank of the river Asopns, and near its mouth. {Map No. 1.) 

2. Corey' ra, now Co7-fu, the most important, although not the largest, of the Ionian islands, 
is situated near the coast of Epirufj, in the Ionian Sea, At its northern extremity it is separated 
from the coast by a channel only three-fifths of a mile wide. The strongly-fortified city of Corfu, 
the capital of the Ionian Republic, stands on the site of the ancient city of Corey' ra, on the 
eastern side of the island. 

3. PotidcB' a was situated on the isthmus that connects the most western of the three Mace- 
donian peninsulas in the JF: gean with the main land. ITiere are no remains of the city exist- 
ing. {Mn-p No. I.) 



Chap. IV.] • GRECIAN HISTORY. 83 

ians, consisting of nearly two hundred galleys, desolated the coasts of 
the Peloponnesus. (B. 0. 431.) The Spartans being recalled to pro- 
tect their own homes, Per' icles himself, at the head of the largest 
force mustered by the Athenians during the war, spread desolation 
over the little territory of Meg' ara,' then in alliance with Sparta. 

22. In the following year (B. C. 430) the Spartan force a second 
time invaded At' tica, when the Athenians again took refuge within 
their walls ; but here the plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, 
attacked them, and swept away multitudes of the citizens, and many 
of the principal men. In the third year of the war. Per' icles him- 
self fell a victim to its ravages. Before this, Potidae' a had surren- 
dered to the Athenians (B. C. 430), who banished the inhabitants, 
and gave their vacant lands and houses to new colonists ; and when 
Platas' a, after a siege of three years, was compelled to surren- 
der to the Spartans, the latter cruelly put the little remnant of the 
garrison to death, while the women and children were made slaves 
(B. C. 427.) 

23. After the struggle had continued with various success ten 
years, both parties became anxious for peace, and a treaty, for a 
term of fifty years, called the peace of Nic' ias, was concluded, on 
the basis of a mutual restitution of all conquests made during the 
war. (421 B. G.) Yet interest and inclination, and the ambitious 
views of party leaders among the Athenians, were not long in find- 
ing plausible pretexts for renewing the struggle. The Boeotian, 
Megarian, and Corinthian allies of Sparta, refused to accede to the 
terms of the treaty by making the required surrenders., and Sparta 
had no power to compel them, while Athens would accept no less 
than she had bargained for. 

24. At the head of the party which aimed at severing the ties 
that boun^ Athens and Sparta together, was Alcibiades, a wealthy 
Athenian, and nephew of Per' icles,— a man ambitious, bold, and 
eloquent, — an artful demagogue, but corrupt and unprincipled, and 
reckless of the means he used to accomplish his purposes. By his 
artifices he involved the Spartans in a war with their recent allies 
the Ar' gives, and induced the Athenians to send an armament 
.against the Dorian island of Melos,^ which had provoked the enmity 

1. Meg' ara^ a city of At' tica, and capital of a district of the same name, was about twcnly- 
five miles west, or north-west, of Athens, and was connected with the port of Nis' sa on the 
Saron' ic Gulf by tw^o walls similar to those which connected Athens and the Piraj' us. The 
miserable village of Meg' ara occupies a part of the site of the ancient city. (Map No. I.) 

2, Mefos, now called Milo, is an island belonging to the group of the CyC lades, about scvenlv 



84 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

of Atliens by its attachment to Sparta, and which was compelled, 
after a vigorous siege, to surrender at discretion. With deliberate 
cruelty the conquerors, imitating the Spartans at the reduction of 
Platce'a, put to death all the adult citizens, and enslaved the women 
and children — an act which provoked universal indignation through- 
out areece. (B. C. 416.) 

25. Soon after the surrender of Melos, the Athenians, at the in- 
stigation of Alcibiades, fitted out an expedition against Sicily,^ un- 
der the plea of delivering a people in the western part of the island 
from the tyranny of the Syracnsans,^ a Dorian colony ; b-ut, in reality, 
to establish the Athenian sujDremacy in the island. (415 B. C.) 
V. SICILIAN The armament fitted out on this occasion, the most 
EXPEDiTiox. powerful that had ever left a Grecian port, was intrust- 
ed to the joint command of Alcibiades, Nic' ias, and Lam' achus ; 
but ere the fleet had reached its destination, Alcibiades was sum- 
moned home on the absurd charge of impiety and sacrilege, con- 
nected with designs against the State itself Fearing to trust 
himself to the giddy multitude in a trial for life, he at once threw 
himself upon the generosity of his open enemies, and sought refuge 

miles east from the southern part of Laconia. It has one of the best harbors in the Grecian 
Arcliipelago. Near the town of Castro have been discovered the remains of a theatre built of 
the finest marble, and also numerous catacombs cut in the solid rock. (Map No. III.) 

1. Sicihj, the largest, most important, most fruitful, and most celebrated island of the Medi- 
terranean, is separated from the southern extremity of Italy by the strait of Messina, only tvro 
miles across, and is eighty-five miles distant from Cape Bon in Africa. It is of a triangular shape, 
and was anciently called Trinacria, from its terminating in three promontories. Sicily, the 
name by which it is usually known, seems to have been derived from the SicvJi, its earliest 
known inliabitants. Its length east and west is about two hundred and fifteen miles ; — greatest 
breadth, one hundred and fifty miles. The volcano iEtna, the most celebrated of Etn-opea?* 
mountains, near the eastern coast of the island, rises to the height of nearly eleven thousand 
feet above the level of tlie sea. {Map No. VIII. For history of Sicily, see p. 115.) 

2. .S'2/7-ac«se, the most famous of the cities of Sicily, was situated on the south-eastern coast, 
partly on a small island, and partly on the main land. Among the existing remains of the 
ancient city are the prisons, cut in the solid rock, which have been admirably described by 
Cicero in his oration against Verres. The catacombs, also excavated in the solid rock, and 
consisting of one principal street and several smaller ones, are of vast extent, and maybe truly 
called a city of the dead. The modern city, however, containing a population of twelve or fi;- 
teen tliousand inhabitants, has little except its ancient renown, its noble harbor, and the ex- 
treme beauty of its situation, to recommend it. {Map No. VIII.) " Its streets are narrow and 
dirty ; its nobles poor ; its lower orders ignorant, superstitious, idle, and addicted to festivals. 
7>iuch of its fertile land is become a pestilential marsh ; and that comm»erce which once filled 
tlie finest port in Eiirojje with tlie vessels of Italy, Rhodes, Alexandria, Carthage, and cvery 
other maritime power, is now confined to a petty coasting trade. Such is modern Syracuse- 
Yet the sky which canopies it is still brilliant and serene ; the golden grain is still ready to 
spring almost spontiincously from its fields ; the azure waves still beat against its walls to 
send its navies over the main ; nature is still prompt to pour forth her bounties with a liberal 
hand; but man, alas! is changed ; his liberty is lost ; and with that, the genius of a nation 
rise!". sink=<, and is extingnished." — Hughes'' Greece. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 85 

at Sparta. When, soon after, lie heard that the Athenians had con- 
demned him to death, " I hope," said he, " to show them that I am 
still alive." 

26. By the death of Lam' achus, Nic' ias was soon after left in 
sole command of the Athenian forces before Syracuse, but he wasted 
his time in fortifying his camp, and in useless negotiations, until the 
Syracusans, having received succor from Corinth and Sparta under 
the famous Spartan general Grylip' pus, were able to bid him defi- 
ance. Although new forces were sent out from Athens, yet the 
Athenians were defeated in several engagements, when, still linger- 
ing in the island, their entire fleet was eventually destroyed by the 
Syracusans, who thus became masters of the sea. The Athenian 
forces then attempted to retreat, but were overtaken and compelled 
to surrender. (B. C. 413.) The generals destroyed themselves, on 
learning that their death had been decreed by the Sja-acusan assem- 
bly. The common soldiers, to the number of seven thousand, were 
crowded together during seventy days in the gloomy prisons of 
Syracuse, when most of the survivors were taken out and sold as slaves. 

27. The aid which Gylip'pus had rendered the Syracusans again 
brought Sparta and Athens in direct conflict, and opened the second 
Peloponnesian war. The result of the Athenian expe- ^^ second 
dition was the greatest calamity that had fallen upon peloponne- 
Athens. Several of her allies, instigated by Alcibiades, ®''^^ ^^''^^'' 
who was now active in the Spartan councils, revolted; and the 
power of Tisapher' nes, the most powerful satrap of the king of Persia 
in Asia Minor, was on the point of being thrown into the scale against 
the Athenians, when a rupture between the Spartans and Alcibiades 
changed the aspect of affairs, and for awhile revived the waning 
glory of Athens. By his intrigues, Alcibiades, who now sought a 
reconciliation with his countrjmien, detached Tisapher' nes from the 
interests of Sparta, and effected a change of government at Athens 
from a democracy to an aristocracy of four hundred of the nobility ; 
but the new government, dreading the ambition of Alcibiades, re- 
fused to recall him. Another change soon followed. The defeat of 
the Athenian navy at Eretria,^ and the revolt of Euboe' a, produced 
a new revolution at Athens, by which the government of the four 
hundred was overthrown, and democracy restored. Alcibiades was 
immediately recalled ; but before his return he aided in destroying 

1. Eretria was a town on the western coast of the island of Euboe' a. Its ruins are still to 
be seen ten or twelve miles south-east from the present Neg' ropont. (Mnp No. T.) 



86 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

the Peloponnesian fleet in the battle of Cys'iciis.^ (B. C 411.) 
Soon after, Alcibiades was welcomed at Athens with great enthusi- 
asm, a golden crown was decreed him, and he was appointed com- 
mander-in-chief of all the forces of the commonwealtli both by land 
and by sea. 

28. Alcibiades was still destined to experience the instability of 
fortune, for when one of his generals, contrary to instructions, attacked 
the Spartan fleet and was defeated, an unjust suspicion of treachery 
fell upon Alcibiades ; the former charges against him were revived, 
and he was deprived of his command and again banished. The 
afikirs of Sparta were retrieved by the crafty Lysan' der, a general 
whose abilities the Athenians could not match since they had de- 
prived themselves of the services of Alcibiades. The Spartan 
general had the art to gain the confidence and cooperation of Cyrus, 
a younger son of Darius No' thus, the Persian king, whom the latter 
had invested with supreme authority over the whole maritime re- 
gion of Asia Minor. 

29. Aided by Persian gold, Lysan' der found no difficulty in man- 
ning a numerous fleet, with which he met the Athenians at j^'gos- 
Pot' amos.^ Here, during several daj'-s, he declined a battle, but 
seizing the opportunity when nearly all the Athenians were dispersed 
on shore in quest of supplies, he attacked and destroyed all their 
shij)S, with the exception of eight galleys, and took three thousand 
prisoners. The fate of the prisoners is a shocking proof of the bar- 
barous feelings and manners of the age, for all of them were re- 
morselessly put to death, in revenge for some recent cruelties of the 
Athenians, who had thrown down a precipice the crews of two captured 
vessels, and had passed a decree for cutting off the right thumb of 
the prisoners whose capture they anticipated in the coming battle. 

30. Thus, in one short hour, by the culpable negligence of their 
generals, were the affairs of the Athenians changed from an equality 
of resources with their enemy, to hopeless, irretrievable ruin. The 
maritime allies of Atliens immediately submitted to Lysander, who 
directed the Athenians throughout Greece to repair at once to 
Athens, with threats of death to all whom he found elsewhere ; and 

1. Cys' icus was an island of the Propon' tis, (now sea of Marmora,) on the northern coast 
of Mys' ia. It was separated from the main land by a very narrow channel, which has since 
been filled up, and it is now a peninsula. (Map No. IV.) 

2. ^' gos-Pof amos, ("goat's river") was a small stream of the Thracian Chersonesus, wliich 
flows into the Hellespent from the west. Tiie place where the Athenians landed, appears t? 
have been " a mere open beach, without any habitation*!," (Thirwnil, i. 48r),> (Jlap No. IV ) 



CffAP. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 87 

when famine began to jDrey upon the collected multitude in the 
city, he appeared before the Piras' us with his fleet, while a large 
force from Sparta blockaded Athens by land. The Athenians had 
no hopes of effectual resistance, and only delayed the surrender to 
plead for the best terms that could be obtained from the conquerors. 
Compelled at last to submit to whatever terms were dictated to them, 
they agreed to destroy the long walls, and the fortifications of the 
Piroe' us ; to surrender all their ships but twelve ; to restore their 
exiles ; to relinquish their conquests ; to become a member of the 
Peloponnesian confederacy ; and to serve Sparta in all her expedi- 
tions, whether by sea or by land. (B. C. 404.) Thus closed the 
second Peloponnesian war, in the profound humiliation of Athens. 

31. A change of government followed, as directed by Lysander, 
and conformable to the aristocratic character of the Spartan institu- 
tions. All authority was placed in the hands of thirty archons, 
known as the Thirty Tyrants, whose power was supported by a 
Spartan garrison. Their cruelty and rapacity knew no bounds, and 
filled Athens with universal dismay. A large band of exiles soon 
accumulated in the friendly Theban territories, and choosing Thrasy- 
biilus for their leader, they resolved to strike a blow for the deliver- 
ance of their country. They first seized a small fortress on the 
frontiers of Attica, when, their numbers rapidly increasing, they were 
enabled to seize the Pirre' us, where they defeated the force which 
was brought against them. The rule of the tyrants was overthrown, 
and a council of ten was elected to fill their places ; but the latter 
emulated the wickedness of their predecessors, and, when the popu- 
lace turned against them, applied to Sparta for assistance. But the 
Spartan councils were divided, and eventually, by the aid of Sparta 
herself, the ten were deposed, when, the Spartan garrison being 
withdravm, Athens again became a democracy, with the power in 
the hands of the people. (B. C. 403.) 

32. It was during the rule of democracy in Athens that the wise 
and virtuous Socrates, the best and greatest of Grecian philosophers, 
was condemned to death on the absurd charge of impiety, and of 
corrupting the morals of the young. His accusers appear to have 
been instigated by personal resentment, which he had innocently pro- 
voked, and by envy of his many virtues ; and the result shows not 
only the instability, but the moral obliquity also, of the Athenian 
character. The defence which Socrates made before his judges is 
in the tone of a man who demands rewards and honors, instead of 



8|-^ ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

the piinisliment of a malefactor ; and when the sentence of death had 
been pronounced against him, he sjDent the remaining days which the 
laws allowed him in impressing on the minds of his friends the most 
sublime lessons in philosophy and virtue ; and when the fatal hour 
arrived, drank the poison with as much composure as if it had been 
the last draught of a cheerful banquet. 

33. Cyrus has been mentioned as one of the sons of Darius No' thus, 
and governor of the maritime region of Asia Minor. As his ambi- 
tion led him to aspire to the throne of Persia, to the exclusion of 
his elder brother, Artaxerxes Mnemon, he had aided Sparta in the 
Peloponnesian war, with the view of claiming, in return, her assist- 
ance against his brother, should he ever have occasion for it. When, 
therefore, the latter was promoted to the throne in accordance with 
the dying bequest of his father, Cyrus prepared for the execution 
of his design by raising an army of a hundred thousand Persian 
and barbarian troops, which he strengthened by an auxiliary force 
of thirteen thousand Grecians, drawn principally from the Greek 
cities of Asia. On the Grecian force, commanded by the Spartan 
Clear' chus, Cyrus placed his main reliance for success. 

34. With these forces he marched from Sardis in the Spring of 
the year 401, and with little difficulty penetrated into the heart of 
the Persian empire, when he was met by Artaxerx' es, seventy miles 
from Babylon, at the head of nine hundred thousand men. In the 
battle which followed, this immense force was at first routed ; but 
Cyrus, rashly charging the centre of the guards who surrounded his 
brother, was slain on the field, when the whole of his barbarian 
troops took to flight, leaving the Greeks almost alone in the midst 
of a hostile country, more than a thousand miles from any friendly 
territory. 

35. The Persians proposed to the Grecians terms of accommo- 
dation, but having invited their leaders to a conference they mer- 
cilessly put them to death. No alternative now remained to the 
Greeks but to submit to the enemy, or fight their way back to 
their native country. Where submission was death or slavery they 
could not hesitate which course to pursue. They chose Xen' ophon, 
a young Athenian, for their leader, and under his conduct ten thou- 
sand of their number, after a march of four months, succeeded in 
reaching Grecian settlements on the banks of the Eux' ine. Xen 'o- 
phon himself, who afterwards became the historian of his country, 
has left an admirable narrative of the "Eetreat of the Ten Thou- 



Chap, VI.] GRECIAN HISTORY. ' 89 

sand," written with great clearness and singular modesty. It is one 
of the most interesting works bequeathed us by antiquity, as the 
Retreat itself is the most famous military expedition on record. 

36. The part which the Greek cities of Asia took in the expedi- 
tion of Cyrus involved them in a war with Persia, in which they 
were aided by the Spartans, who, under their king Agesilaus, de- 
feated Tisapher' nes in a great battle in the plains of Sardis (B. C 
395) ; but Agesilaus was soon after recalled to aid his ^^^ third 
comitrymen at home in another Peloponnesian war, which peloponne- 
had been fomented chiefly by the Persian king himself, ^^"^^ ^^^- 
in order to save his own dominions from the ravages of the Spartans. 
Artaxerx' es supplied Conon, an Athenian, with a fleet which defeat- 
ed the Spartan navy ; and Persian gold rebuilt the walls of Athens. 
On the other hand, Athens and her allies were defeated in the 
vicinity of Corinth, and on the plains of Coronea.^ (B. C. 394). 
Finall}^, after the war had continued eight j'^ears, articles of peace 
were arranged between Artaxerx'es and the Spartan AntaFcidas, 
hence called the peace of Antal' cidas, and ratified by all the parties 
engaged in the war, almost without opposition. (387 B. C.) The 
Greek cities in Asia, together with the islands Clazom'enge'^ and 
Cy' prus, were given up to Persia, and the separate independence of 
all the other Greek cities was guaranteed, with the exception of the 
islands Im' brus, Lem' nos, and Scy' rus,^ which, as of old, were to 
belong to Athens. 

37. The terms of the peace of AntaF cidas, directed by the king of 
Persia, were artfully contrived by him to dissolve the power of 
Greece into nearly its original elements, that Persia might there- 
after have less to fear from a united Greek confederacy, or the pre- 
ponderating influence of any one Grecian State. It was the un- 
worthy jealousy of the Grecians, which the Persian knew how to 
stimulate, that prompted them to give up to a barbarian the free 
cities of Asia ; and this is the darkest shade in the picture. Both 
Athens and Sparta lost their former allies ; and though Sparta was 



1. Coronea was a cily of Boeotia, to Ihe south-east of C/iaironca, and two or three miles 
south-west from tlie Copaic Lake. South of Coronea was Mount Helicon. (.Map No. I.) 

2. The Clazom' cikb here mentioned was a small island near the Lydian coast, west of 
Smyrna, and in what is now called the Gulf of Smyrna. {Map No. IV.) 

3. Im' brus, Lem' nos, and Scy' rus, (now Imbro, Stalimene, and Scyro,) are islands of the 
M' gean. The first is about ten miles west from the entrance to the Hel' lespont, and the second 
about forty miles south-west. Scy' rus is ab )ut twenty-five miles north-east from Euboe' a. 
{Map No. III.) 



§& ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

the most strongly in favor of the terms of the treaty, yet Athens 
was the greatest gainer, for she once more became, although a small, 
3'et an independent and powerful State. 

38. It was not long before ambition, and the resentment of past 
injuries, involved Sparta in new wars. She compelled Mantinea,^ 
which had formerly been her unwilling ally, to throw down her 
walls, and dismember the city into its original divisions, under the 
pretext that the Mantineans had supplied one of the enemies of 
Sparta with corn during the preceding war, and had evaded their 
share of service in the Spartan army. The jealousy of Sparta v/as 
next aroused against the rising power of Olyn' thus," which had 
become engaged in hostilities with some rival cities ; and the Spar- 
tans readily accepted an invitation of the latter to send an army to 
their aid. As one of the Spartan forces was marching through the 
Theban territories on this errand, the Spartan general fraudulently 
seized upon the Cadmeia, or Theban citadel, although a state of 
peace existed between Thebes and Sparta. (B. C. 382.) 

39. The political morality of the Spartans is clearly exhibited in 
the arguments by which Agesilaus justified this palpable breach of 
the treaty of Antal' cidas. He declared that the only question for 
the Spartan people to consider, was, whether they were gainers or 
losers by the transaction. The assertion made by the Athenians on 
a former occasion was confirmed, that, " of all States, Sparta had 
most glaringly shown by her conduct that in her political transactions 
she measured honor by inclination, and justice by expediency." 

40. On the seizure of the Theban citadel the most patriotic of 
the citizens fled to Athens, while a faction, upheld by the Spartan 
garrison, ruled the city. After the Thebans had submitted to this 
yoke four years they rose against their tyrants and put them to 
death, and being re-enforced by the exiles, and an Athenian army, 
soon forced the Spartan garrison to capitulate. (B. C. 379.) Pelop'- 
idas and Epaminon' das now appeared on the field of action, and by 
their abilities raised Thebes, hitherto of but little political import- 



1. Mantinea waa in the eastern part of Arcadia, seventeen miles west from Ar' gos. It was 
Biluatedin a marshy plain through which flowed the small river A' phis, whose waters found 
a subterranean passage to the sea. Mantinea is wholly indebted for its celebrity to the great 
battle fought in its vicinity in the year 362 between the Spartans and Thebans. (Seep. 91.) 
The locality of the battle was about three miles southwest from the city. The ruins of the 
ancient town may be seen near the wretched modern hamlet of Palaiopoli. {Map No. I.) 

2. Olyn' thus was in the south-eastern part of Macedonia, six or seven miles north-east from 
Potidae'a. {Map'So.l.) 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 91 

ance, to the first rank in power among the Grecian States. Al- 
though Athens joined Thebes in the beginning of the contest, ye'' 
she afterwards took the side of the Spartans. At Teg'jra, ^ Pe- 
lop' idas defeated a greatly superior force, and killed the two Spartan 
generals ; at Leuc' tra,'^ Epaminon' das, with a force of six thousand 
Thebans, defeated the Lacedaemo' nian army of more than double 
that number. (B. C. July 8, 371.) Epaminon' das afterwards in- 
vaded Laconia, and appeared before the very gates of Sparta, where 
a hostile force had not been seen during five hundred years ; and at 
Mantinea he defeated the enemy in the most sanguinary contest ever 
fought between Grecians. (B. C. 362.) But Epaminon' das fell in 
the moment of victory, and the glory of Thebes perished with him. 
A general peace was soon after established, on the single condition 
that each State should retain its respective possessions. 

41. Four years after the battle of Mantinea the Grecian States 
again became involved in domestic hostilities, known as the Sacred 
War, the second in Grecian history to which that epi- ym. second 
thet was applied. a- During the preceding war, the Pho- sacred war. 
cians,^ although in alliance with Thebes by treaty, had shown such a 
predilection in favor of Sparta, that the animosity of the Thebans 
was roused against their reluctant ally, and they availed themselves 
of the first opportunity to show their resentment. The Phocians 
having taken into cultivation a portion of the plain of Del' phos, 
which was deemed sacred to Apollo, the Thebans caused them to 
be accused of sacrilege before the Amphictyon' ic council, which con- 
demned them to pay a heavy fine. The Phocians refused obedience, 
and, encouraged by the Spartans, on whom a similar penalty had 
been imposed for their treacherous occupation of the Theban citadel, 
took up arms to resist the decree, and, under their leader, Philome- 
lus, plundered the sacred treasures of Del' phos to obtain the means 
for carrying on the war. 

1. Teg'yra was a small village of Boeotia, near the northern shore of the Copaic Lake. 
{Map No. I.) 

2. Leuc' tra (now Lefka) was a small town of Boeotia, about ten miles south-west from 
Thebes, and four or five miles from the Corinthian Gulf. It is now only a heap of ruins. 
(Jilap No. I.) 

3. Plwcis was a small tract of country, bounded on the north by Thes' saly, east by Boeotia, 
south by the Corinthian Gulf, and west by Locris, ^Etolia, and Doris. {Map No. T.) 

a. The first sacred war was carried on against the inhabitants of the town of Crls' sa, on the 
northern shore of the Corinthian Gulf, in the time of Solon. The Crisseans were charged with 
extortion and violence towards the strangers who passed through their territory on their way 
to the Delphic sanctuary. " Cris' sa was razed to the ground, its harbor choked up, and its 
fruitful plain turned into a wilderness." — Thirwall, i. 152. 



92 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet L 

42. The Thebans, Locrians/ Thessalians, and nearly all the States 
of Northern Greece, leagued against the Phocians, while Athens 
and Sparta declared in their favor, but gave them little active as- 
sistance. At first the Thebans, confident in their strength, put 
their prisoners to death, as abettors of sacrilege ; but Philomelus 
retaliated so severely upon some Thebans who had fallen into his 
power, as to prevent a repetition of the crime. After the war had 
continued five years, a new power was brought forward on the 
theatre of Grecian history, in the person of Philip, who had recently 
established himself on the throne of Mac' edon, and whom some of 
the Thessalian allies of Thebes applied to for aid against the Pho- 
cians. The interference of Philip forms an important epoch in 
Grecian afi'airs, at which we interrupt our narrative to trace the 
growth of the Macedonian monarchy down to the time when its 
history became united with that of its southern neighbors. 



SECTION 11. 

GRECIAN HISTORY FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PHILIP ON THE THRONE OF 
MAC EDON TO THE REDUCTION OF GREECE TO A ROMAN PROVINCE : 

360 TO 146 B. c. = 214 years. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Geographical account of Macedonia.— 2. Early history of Macedonia. Gre- 
cian rulers. PniLip OF mac' EDON.— 3. Philip's residcuce at Thebes.— 4. His usurpation of the 
kingdom of Mac' edon. His wars with the Illyr' ians and other tribes. His first efforts against 
Ihe Phocians.— 5. Philip reduces Phocis. Decree of the Amphictyon' ic council against Phocis. 
Growing influence of Philip.— G. The ambitious projects of Philip. [Ulyr'ia. Epirus. Acar- 
nania.]— 7. Rupture between Philip and the Athenians. [Chersoaisus.] Devotion of the 
orator ^s' chines to Philip. [Amphis' sa.] Philip throws off the mask. [Elateia.]— 8. Thebes 
and Athens prepare to oppose him. Dissensions.— 9. The masterly policy of Philip. .The con- 
federacy against him dissolved by the battle of Chreronea. [Chaeronea.]- 10. Philip's treatment 
of the Thebans and the Athenians. General congress of the Grecian States, and death of 
Philip. 

11. Alexander succeeds Philip. He quells the revolt against him. His cruel treatment of 
the Thebans.— 12. Servility of Athens. Preparations of Alexander for his career of Eastern 
conquest.— 13. Results of his first campaign. [Gran' icus. Halicarnas' sus.]— 14. He resumes 
his march in the spring of 333. Defeats Darius at Is' sus. [Cappadocia. Cilic' ia. Is' sus.] 
Results of the battle. Effect of Alexander's kindness —15. Reduction of Palestine. [Gaza.] 
Expedition into Egypt. [Alexandria.] Alexander returns and crosses the Euphrates in search 
of Darius —16. The opposing forces at the battle of Arb61a. [Arbela. India.]— 17. Results of 
the battle, and death of Darius. — 18. Alexander's residence at Babylon. His march beyond 

1. The Locrians proper inhabited a small territory on the northern shore of the Corinthian 
Gulf, west of Phocis. There were other Locrian tribes north-east of Phocis, whose territory 
bordered on the Euboe' an Gulf. {Map No. I.) 



Chap. IY.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 93 

the Indus. [Kyphasis R.]— 19. His return to Persia. [Persian Gulf. Gedrosia.] His meas- 
ures for consolidating his empire.— 20. His sickness and death.— 21. His character.— 22. As 
judged of by his actions. The results of his conquests. [Scleiicia.] — 23. Contentions that followed 
his death. — 24. Grecian confederacy against Macedonian supremacy. Sparta and Thebes. Athena 
is finally compelled to yield to Antip' ater. — 25. Cassan' der's usurpation. Views and conquests 
of Antig' onus. Final dissolution of the Macedonian empire. [Ip' sus. Phryg' ia.] 

26. The four kingdoms that arose on the ruins of the empire. Those of Egypt and Syria the 
most powerful.— 27. The empire of Cassan' der. Usurpation of Demetrius. Character of his 
government. The war carried on against him.— 28. Unsettled state of Mac' edon, Greece, and 
Western Asia.— 29. Celtic invasion of Mac' edon. [Adriaf ic. Pannonia.]— 30. Second Celtic 
invasion. The Celts are repelled by the Phocians. Death of Brennus, their chief.— 31. Antig'- 
onus, son of Demetrius, recovers the throne of his father. Is invaded by Pyr' rhus, king of 
Epirus.— 32. Pyr' rhus marches into Southern Greece. Is repulsed by the Spartans. He enters 
Ar' gos. His death.— 33. Remarks on the death of Pyr' rhus. Ambitious views of Antig' onus 

34. The Ach^e'an League. Ariitus seizes Sicyon, which joins the league.— 35. Aratus 
rescues Corinth, which at first joins the league. Conduct of Athens and Sparta.— 30. Antig'- 
onus II. — 37. League of the iEtolians, who invade the Mess^nians. [^tolia.] Defeat of Ara- 
tus. General war between the respective members of the two leagues. — 38. Results of this 
war. The war between the Romans and Carthaginians. Policy of Philip II. of Mac' edon.— 
39. He enters into an alliance with the Carthaginians. His defeat at Apollonia. [Apollonia.] 
—40. He causes the death of Aratns. Roman intrigues in Greece.— 41. Overllirow of Philip's 
power. The Romans promise independence to Greece.— 42. Remarks on the sincerity of the 
promise. Treatment of the ^tolians. Extinction of the Macedonian monarchy. [Pyd' na.] 
—43. Unjust treatment of the Achge' ans. Roman ambassadors insulted.— 44. The Achas' an 
war, and reduction of Greece to a Roman province. Remarks of Thirvvall.— 45. Henceforward 
Grecian history is absorbed in that of Rome. Condition of Greece since the Persian v/ars. In 
the days of Strabo. 

CoTEMPORARY HisTORY. — 1. Cotcuiporary annals of other nations :— Persians — Egyptians. — 
History or the Jews.— 2. Rebuilding of the second temple of Jerusalem. The Jews during 
the reigns of Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Nehemiah's administration. — 3. Judea a part of the sat'- 
rapy of Syria. Judea after the division of Alexander's empire. Judea invaded by Ptolemy 
Soter. — 4. Judea subject to Egypt. Ptolemy-Philadelphus. The Jews place themselves under 
the rule of Syria.— 5. Civil war among the Jews. Anliochus plunders Jerusalem. Attempts to 
establish the Grecian polytheism.— (5. Revolt of the Mac' cabees.— 7, Continuation of the war 
with Syria. [Bethoron.] Death of Judas Maccabeus.— 8. The Syrians become masters of the 
country. Prosperity of the Jews under Simon Maccabeus.- 9. The remaining history of the 
Jews. 

10. Grecian Colonies. Those of Thrace, Mac' edon, and Asia Rlinor. Of Italy, Sicily, and 
Cyrenaica. 11. Magna Grjecia. Early settlements in western Italy and in Sicily. [Cixmaj. 
Neap'olis. Nax'os. Gela. Jlessana. Agrigcn' tum.] — 12. On the south-eastern coast of 
Italy. History of Syb' aris, Crotona, and Taren' tum. [Description of the same.]— 13. First two 
centuries of Sicilian history. [Him' era.] G61a and Agrigen' tum. The despot Gclo.— 14. Grow- 
ing power of Syracuse under his authority.- 15. The Carthaginians in Sicily— defeated by Gelo. 
[Panor' mus.]— 16. Iliero and Thrasybiilus. [.<Etna.] Revolution and change of government.— 
17. Civil commotions and renewed prosperity. [Kamarina.] — 18. Syracuse and Agrigen' tum at 
the time of the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war. The lon'ic and Dorian cities of Sicily 
during the struggle. Sicilian congress. — 19. Quarrel between the cities of Selinusand Eges'ta. 
[Description of the same.] The Athenian expedition to Sicily. [Cat' ana.]— 20. Events up to 
the beginning of the siege of Syracuse.— 21. Death of Lam' achus, and arrival of Gylip' pus, the 
Spartan.— 22. Both parties reinforced— various battles— total defeat of the Athenians.— 23. Car- 
thaginian encroachments in Sicily— resisted by Dionj's' ius the Elder. Division between the 
Greek and Carthaginian territories, [ilim'era.]— 24. The administration of Tiraoleon. Of 
Agath' ocles. The Romans become masters of Sicily. 

25. Cyrena' ica,— Colonized by Lacedaemonians. Cyrano its chief city. Its ascendancy over 
the Libyan tribes. War with the Egyptians.— 26. Tyranny of Agesilaus— founding of Bar' ca 
—the war which followed. Agesilaus. Civil dissensions. Camby'ses.— 27. Subsequent his- 
tory of Cyrene and Par' ca. Distinguished Cyrcneans. Cyrincans mentioned in Bible history. 



94 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

1. Mac'edon, or^ Macedonia, whose boundaries varied greatly at 
different times, had its south-eastern borders on the JEt^ gean Sea, 
while farther north it was bounded by the river Stry' mon, which 
separated it from Thrace, and on the south by Thes' saly and Epi- 
rus. On the west Macedonia embraced, at times, many of the II- 
lyrian tribes which bordered on the Adriatic. On the north the 
natural boundary was the mountain chain of Has' mus. The prin- 
cipal river of Macedonia was the Axius (now the Yardar), which fell 
into the Thermaic Gulf, now called the Grulf of Salon' iki. 

2. The history of Macedonia down to the time of Philip, the 
father of Alexander the Great, is involved in great obscurity. The 
early Macedonians appear to have been an Illyr' ian tribe, differ- 
ent in race and language from the Hellenes or Greeks : but Herod'- 
otus states that the Macedonian monarchy was founded by Greeks 
from Ar' gos ; and according to Greek writers, twelve or fifteen 

I. PHILIP OF Grecian j)rinces reigned there before the accession of 
mao'edox. Philip, who took charge of the government about the 
year 360 B. C, not as monarch, but as guardian of the infant son 
of his elder brother. 

3. Philip had previously passed several years at Thebes, as a 
hostage, where he eagerly availed himself of the excellent oppor- 
tunities which that city afforded for the acquisition of various kinds 
of knowledge. He successfully cultivated the study of the Greek 
language ; and in the conversation of such generals and statesmen 
as Epaminon' das, Pelop' idas, and their friends, became acquainted 
with the details of the military tactics of the Greeks, and learned 
the nature and working of their democratical institutions. Thus, 
with the superior mental and physical endowments which nature had 
given him, he became eminently fitted for the part which he after- 
wards bore in the intricate game of Grecian politics. 

4. After Philip had successfully defended the throne of Mac' edon 
during several years, in behalf of his nephew, his military successes 
enabled him to take upon himself the kingly title, probably with the 
unanimous consent of both the army and the nation. He annexed 
several Thracian towns to his dominions, reduced the Illyr' ians and 
other nations on liis northern and v/estern borders, and vfas at times 
an ally, and at others an enemy, of Athens. At length, during the 
sacred war against the Phocians, the invitation which he received 
from the Thessalian allies of Thebes, as already noticed, afforded 
him a pretence, which he had long coveted, for a more active inter- 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAIS HISTOHY. 95 

ference in the affairs of his southern neighbors. On entering Thcs'- 
saly, however, on his southern march, he was at first repulsed by the 
Phocians and their allies, and obliged to retire into Macedonia, but, 
soon returning at the head of a more numerous army, he defeated 
the enemy in a decisive battle, and would have marched upon Phocis 
at once to terminate the war, but he found the pass of Thermop'ylK) 
strongly guarded by the Athenians, and thought it prudent to with- 
draw his forces. 

5. Still the sacred war lingered, although the Phocians desired 
peace ; but the revengeful spirit of the Thebans was not allayed ; 
Philip was again urged to crush the profaners of the national re- 
ligion, and having succeeded, in spite of the warnings of the patriotic 
Demosthenes, in lulling the suspicions of the Athenians with pro- 
posals of an advantageous peace, he marched into Phocis, and com- 
pelled the enemy to surrender at discretion. The Amphictyon' ic 
council, being now reinstated in its ancient authority, with the power 
of Philip to enforce its decrees, doomed Phocis to lose her inde- 
pendence forever, to have her cities levelled with the ground, and 
her population, after being distributed in villages of not more than 
fifty dwellings, to pay a yearly tribute of sixty talents to the temple, 
until the whole amount of the plundered treasure should be restored. 
Finally, the two votes which the Phocians had possessed in the 
Amphictyon' ic council were transferred to the king of Mac' edon 
and his successors. The influence which Philip thus obtained in 
the councils of the Grrecians paved the way for the overthrow of 
their liberties. 

6. From an early period of his career Philip had aspired to the 
sovereignty of all Grreece, as a secondary object that should prepare 
the way for the conquest of Persia, the great aim and end of all his 
ambitious projects ; and after the close of the sacred war he accord- 
ingly exerted himself to extend his power and influence, either by 
arms or negotiation, on every side of his dominions; but his in- 
trigues in At' tica, and among the Pelopounesian States, were for a 
time counteracted by the glowing and patriotic eloquence of the 
Athenian Demosthenes, the greatest of Grecian oraiors. In his 
military operations Philip ravaged Illyr' ia' — reduced Thes' saly 
more nearly to a Macedonian province — conquered a part of the 

1. The term Illyr' ia, or Illyr' icum was applied to the country bordering on the eastern shore 
of the Adriatic, and extending from the northern extremity of the Gulf south to the borders 
of Epirus. (Mnp No. VIII.) 



96 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

Thracian territory — extended his power into Epirus and Acarnania^ 
— and would have gained a footing in E' lis and Achaia, on the 
western coast of the Peloponnesus, had it not been for the watchful 
jealousy of Athens, which concerted a league among several of the 
States to repel his encroachments. 

7. The first open rupture with the Athenians occurred while 
Philip was engaged in subduing the Grecian cities on the Thracian 
coast of the Hel' lespont, in what was called the Thracian Chersone- 
sus.'* A little later, the Amphictyon' ic council, through the influ- 
ence of ^s' chines, an orator second only to Demosthenes, but 
secretly devoted to the interests of the king of Mac' edon, appointed 
Philip to conduct a war against Amphis' sa,^ a Locrian town, which 
had been convicted of a sacrilege similar to that of the Phocians. 
It was now that Philip, hastily passing through Thrace at the head 
of a powerful army, first threw off the mask, and revealed his de- 
signs against the liberties of Greece by seizing and fortifying 
Elateia-* the capital of Phocis, which was conveniently situated for 
commanding the entrance into Boeotia. 

8. The Thebans and the Athenians, suddenly awaking from their 
dream of security, from which all the eloquent appeals of Demosthe- 
nes had not hitherto been able to arouse them, prepared to defend 
their territories from invasion ; but most of the Peloponnesian States 
kept aloof through indifference, rather than through fear. Even in 
Thebes and Athens there were parties whom the gold and persua- 
sions of Philip had converted into allies; and when the armies 
marched forth to battle, dissensions pervaded their ranks. The 
spirit of Grecian liberty had already been extinguished. 

9. The masterly policy of Philip still led him to declare that the 
sacred war against Amphis' sa, with the conduct of which he had 

1. Acarnania, Ijing south of Epirus, also bordered ou the Adruitic, or Ionian sea. From 
JStolia on the east it was separated by the Acheloiis, probably the largest river in Greece. 
The Acarn^nians were almost constantly at war with the ^tolians, and were far behind the 
rest of the Greeks in mental culture. {Map No, I.) 

2. The Thracian Chersonesus ("Thracian peninsula") was a peninsula of Thrace, between 
the MeUan Gulf (now Gulf of Siiros) and the Hel' lespont. The fertility of its soil early attracted 
the Grecians to its shores, which soon became crowded with flourishing and popular cities. 
(.,¥«;> No. III.) 

3. Amphis' sa, the chief town of Locris, was about seven miles west from Delphi, near the 
head of the Crissean Gulf, now Gulf of Salona, a branc'n of the Corinthian Gulf. The modern 
town of Salona represents the ancient Amphis' sa. {Map No. I.) 

4. Elateia, a city in the north-east of Phucis, on the left bank of the Cephis' sus, was about 
twenty-five miles north-east from Delphi. Its ruins are to be seen on a site called Elcphta. 
{Map No. I.) 



Chap. IV.J GRECIAN HISTORY. 97 

been intrusted by the Amphictyon' ic council, was his only object ; 
and he had a plausible excuse for entering Boeotia when the The- 
bans and Athenians appeared as the allies of a city devoted by the 
gods to destruction. At Chaeronea^ the hostile armies met, nearly 
equal in number; but there was no Per' icles, nor Epaminon' das, to 
match the warlike abilities of Philip and the young prince Alex- 
ander, the latter of whom commanded a wing of the Macedonian 
army. The day was decided against the G-recians, although their 
loss in battle was not large ; but the event broke up the feeble con- 
federacy against Philip, and left each of the allied States at his 
mercy. 

10. While Philip treated the Thebans with some severity, and 
obliged them to ransom their prisoners, and resign a portion of 
their territory, he exercised a degree of lenity towards the Athen- 
ians which excited general surprise — offering them terms of peace 
which they themselves would scarcely have ventured to propose to 
him. He next assembled a congress of all the Grecian States, at 
Corinth, for the purpose of settling the affairs of Greece. Here all 
his proposals were adopted, war was declared against Persia, and 
Philip was appointed commander-in-chief of the Grecian forces ; but 
while he was making preparations for his great enterprise he was 
assassinated on a public occasion by a Macedonian nobleman, in re- 
venge for some private wrong. 

1 1 . Alexander, the son of Philip, then at the age of twenty years, 
succeeded his father on the throne of Mac' edon. At once the Illvr'- 
ians, Thracians, and other northern tribes that had been 

made tributary by Philip, took up armj to recover their der the 
independence ; but Alexander cjuelled the spirit of re- great. 
volt in a single campaign. During his absence on this expedition, the 
Grecian States, headed by the Thebans and Athenians, made prepara- 
tions to shake off the yoke of Mac' edon ; but Alexander, whose marches 
were unparalleled for their rapidity, suddenly appeared in their m idst. 
Thebes, the first object of his vengeance, was taken by assault, in 
which six thousand of her warriors were slain. Ever distinguished 
by her merciless treatment of her conquered enemies, she was now 

1. The plain of Cheer onea, on which the battle was fought, is on the southern bank of the 
Cephia' sus river, in Boeotia, a few miles from its entrance into the Copaic lake. In the year 
447 B. C. the Athenians hud been defeated on the same spot by the Bceotians ; and in the 
year 86 B. C. the same place witnessed a bloody engagement between the Romans, under 
Sylla, and the troops of Mithridates. (Jilap No. l."* 

1 



98 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

(loomed to suffer tlie extreme penalties of war wliich she had often 
inflicted on others. Most of the city was levelled with the ground, 
and thirty thousand prisoners, besides women and children, were con- 
demned to slavery. 

12. The other Grecian States which had provoked the resentment 
of Alexander, hastily renewed their submission ; and Athens, with 
servile homage, sent an embassy to congratulate the youthful hero on 
Iiis recent successes. Alexander accepted the excuses of all, renewed 
the confederacy which his father had formed, and having intrusted 
the government of Greece and Mac' edon to Antip' ater, one of his 
generals, set out on his career of eastern conquest, at the head of an 
army of only thirty-five thousand men, and taking with him a treasury 
of only seventy talents of silver. He had even distributed nearly all 
the remaining property of his crown among his friends ; and when he 
was asked by Perdic' cas what he had reserved for himself, he an- 
swered, " My hopes." 

13. Early in the spring of the year 334, Alexander crossed the 
Her lespont, and a few days later defeated an immense Persian army 
on the eastern bank of the Gran' icus,^ with the loss on his part of 
only eighty-five horsemen and thirty light infantry. Proceeding 
thence south towards the coast, the gates of Sardis and Eph' esus 
were thrown open to him ; and although at Miletus and Halicar- 
nas' sus" he met with some resistance, yet before the close of the 
first campaign he was undisputed master of all Asia Minor. 

14. Early in the following spring (B. C. 333), he directed his 
march farther eastward, through Cappadocia^ and Cilic' ia,* and on 
the coast of the latter, near the small town of Is' sus,"^ again met 

1. The Or an' lens, the same as the Turkish Dcmotiko, is a a small stream of Mys' ia, in Asia 
Pilinor, which flows from Mount I' da, east of Troy, northward into the Propon' tis, or Sea of 
T^Iai-mora. (Map No. IV.) 

2. Ilalicarnas' sus, the principal city of Caria, was situated on the northern shore of the 
('nr' amic Gulf, now Gulf of Kos, one hundred miles south from Smyrna. Ilalicarnas' sus was 
the birth-place of Herod' otus the historian, of Dionys' ins the historian and critic, and of Hera- 
clitus the poet. It was Artemis' ia, queen of Caria, who erected the splendid mausoleum, or 
tomb, to her husband, Mausolus. The Turkish town of Boodroom is on the site of the ancient 
Halicarnas' sus. Near the modern town are to be seen old walls, exquisite sculptures, frag- 
ments of columns, and the remains of a theatre two hundred and eighty feet in diameter, 
which seems to have had thirty-six rows of marble seats. (Map No. IV.) 

3. CappadS^ia was an interior province of Asia Minor, south-east of Galatia. (Map No. IV.) 

4. Cilic' ia wasso\ith of Cappadocia, on the coast of the ftlediterranean. (Map No. IV.) 

5. Is' sus (now Aiasse, or Urzin) was a sea-port town of Cilic' ia, at the north-eastern ex- 
tremity of the Mediterranean, and at the head of the Gulf of Is' sus. The plain between the 
t^ea and the mountains, where the battle was fought, was less than two miles in width,— a suf- 
ficient space for the evolutions of the Mac' edonian phalanx, but not large enough for the maoi- 
ituvrea of £0 groat an army as that of Darius. (Map No. IV.) 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 99 

the Persian army, numbering seven liimdred thousand men, and 
commanded by Darius himself, king of Persia. In the battle which 
followed, Alexander, as usual, led on his army in person, and fought 
in the thickest of the fight. The result was a total rout of the Per- 
sians, with a loss of more than a hundred thousand men, while that 
of the Greeks and Macedonians was less than five hundred. The 
Persian monarch fled in the beginning of the engagement, leaving 
his mother, wife, daughters, and an infant son, to the mercy of the 
victor, who treated them with the greatest kindness and respect. 
When, afterwards, Darius heard, at the same time, of the generous 
treatment of his wife, who was accounted the most beautiful woman 
in Asia, — of her death from sudden illness, and of the magnificent 
burial which she had received from the conqueror, — he lifted up his 
hands to heaven and prayed, that if his kingdom were to pass from 
himself, it might be transferred to Alexander. 

15. The conqueror next directed his march southward through 
northern Syria and Palestine. At Damascus a vast amount of 
treasure belonging to the king of Persia fell into his hands : the 
city of Tyre, after a vigorous siege of seven months, and a desperate 
resistance, was taken by storm, and thirty thousand of the Tyrians 
sold as slaves. (B. C. 332.) After the fall of Tyre, all the cities 
of Palestine submitted, except Gaza,^ which made as obstinate a de- 
fence as Tyre, and was as severely punished. From Palestine Alex- 
ander proceeded into Egypt, which was eager to throw off the Per- 
sian tyranny, and he took especial care to conciliate the priests by 
the honors which he paid to the Egyptian gods. After having 
founded a new city, which he named Alexandria,^ and crossed the 

1. Oaza^ ail early Philistine city of great natural strength in the south-western part of Palestine, 
was sixteen miles south of Ascalon, and but a short distance from the Mediterranean. The 
place was called Constantia by the Romans, and is now called Rassa by the Arabs. (Map No. VI.) 

2. Alexandria is about fourteen miles sonth-west from the Canopic, or most western branch 
of the Nile, and is built partly on the ridge of land between the sea and the bed of the old 
Lake Mareotis, and partly on the peninsula (formerly island) of Pharos, which projects into 
the Mediterranean. Alexandria, the site of which was most admirably chosen by its founder, 
is the only port on the Egyptian coast that has deep water, and that is accessible at all sea- 
eons. Lake RIareotis, which for many ages after the Greek and Roman dominion in Egypt 
was mostly dried up, and whose bed was lower than the surface of the Mediterranean, had no 
outlet to the sea until the English, in the year 1801, opened a passage into it from the Bay 
of Aboukir, when it soon resumed its ancient extent. The ancient canal from Alexandria to the 
Nile, a distance of forty-eight miles, was reopened in 1819. While the commerce of tlie Indies 
was carried on by way of the Red Sea and the Isthmus of Suez, Alexandria v/as a great com- 
mercial emporium, but it rapidly declined after the discovery of the passage to India by way 
of the Cape of Good Hope. It is probable that the commerce of the cast, through the agency 
of steam, will again flow, to a great extent, in the sncient channel, and that Alexandria will 
again become a great commercial emporium. (Map No. V.) 



100 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

Libyan desert to consult the oracle of Jupiter Am' mon, he returned 
to Palestine, when, learning that Darius was making vast prepara- 
tions to oppose him, he crossed the Euphrates, and directed his 
march into the very heart of the Persian empire, declaring that " the 
world could no more admit two masters than two suns." 

16. On a beautiful plain twenty miles distant from the town of 
Arbela,^ whence the battle derives its name, the Persian monarch, 
surrounded by all the pomp and luxury of Eastern magnificence, had 
collected the remaining strength of his empire, Consisting of an 
army, as stated by some authors, of more than a million of foot 
soldiers, and forty thousand cavalry, besides two hundred scythed 
chariots, and fifteen elephants brought from the west of India.'* To 
oppose this force Alexander had only forty thousand foot soldiers, 
and seven thousand cavalry, but they were well armed and discip- 
lined, confident of victory, and led by an able general who had never 
experienced a defeat, and who directed the operations of the battle 
in person. (B. C. 331.) 

17. Darius sustained the conflict with better judgment and more 
courage than at Is' sus, but the cool intrepidity of the Macedonian 
phalanx was irresistible, and the field of battle soon became a scene 
of slaughter, in which, some say, forty thousand, and others, three 
hundred thousand of the barbarians were slain, while the loss of 
Alexander did not exceed five hundred men. Although Darius es- 
caped with a portion of his body-guard, yet the result of the battle 
decided the contest, and gave to Alexander the dominion of the Per- 
sian empire. Not long after, Darius himself was slain by one of 
his own officers. 

18. Soon after the battle of Arbela, Alexander proceeded to 
Babylon, and during four years remained in the heart of Persia, re 
ducing to subjection the chiefs who still struggled for independence, 
and regulating the government of the conquered provinces. Am- 
bitious of farther conquests, he passed the Indus, and invaded the 
country of the Indian king Porus, whom he defeated in a sanguinary 
engagement, and took prisoner. When brought into the presence 
of Alexander, and asked how he would be treated, he replied, " Like 
a king ;" and so pleased was the conqueror with the lofty demeanor 

1. Arbela was about forty miles cast of the Tigris, and twenty miles south-east from the 
plain of Gaugam61a, where the battle was fought. Gaugam61a, a small hamlet, was a short 
distance south-east from the site of Nineveh. 

2. The term India was applied by the ancient geographers to all that part of Asia which is 
east of the river Indus. {JSlaji No. V.) 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 101 

of tlie captive, and with the valor which he had shown in battle, that 
he not only re-instated him in his royal dignity, but conferred upon 
him a large addition of territory. Alexander continued his march 
eastward until he reached the Hyphasis,' the most eastern tributary 
of the Indus, when his troops, seeing no end of their toils, refused 
to follow him farther, and he was reluctantly forced to abandon the 
career of conquest which he had marked out for himself to the 
eastern ocean. 

19. Eesolving to return into Central Asia by a new route, he de- 
scended the Indus to the sea, whence, after sending a fleet with a 
portion of his forces around through the Persian Gulf ^ to the Eu- 
phrates, he marched with the rest of his army through the barren 
wastes of Gedrosia,^ and after much suffering and considerable loss, 
arrived once more in the fertile provinces of Persia. For some time 
after his return his attention was engrossed with plans for organizing, 
on a permanent basis, the government of the mighty empire which 
he had won. Aiming to unite the conquerors and the conquered, 
so as to form out of both a nation independent alike of Macedonian 
and of Persian prejudices, he married Statira, the oldest daughter of 
Darius, and united his principal officers with Persian and Median 
women of the noblest families, while ten thousand of his soldiers 
were induced to follow the example of their superiors. 

20. But while he was occupied with these cares, and with dreams 
of future conquests, his career was suddenly terminated by death. 
On setting out to visit Babylon, soon after the decease of an inti- 
mate friend, which had caused a great depression of his spirits, he 
was warned by the magicians that Babylon would be fatal to him ; 
but he proceeded to the city, where, haunted by gloomy forebodings 
and superstitious fancies, he endeavored to dispel his melancholy by 
indulging more freely in the pleasures of the table. Excessive drink- 
ing at length brought to a crisis a fever, which he had probably con- 

1. The Hyphasis, now called Beyah, or Beas, is the most eastern tributary of the Indus. 
The Sutledge, which enters the Beyah from the east, has been mistaken by some writers for the 
ancient Plyphasis. (Map No. V.) 

2. The Persian Gulf is an extensive arm of the Indian ocean, separating Southern Persia 
from Arabia. During a long period it was the thoroughfare for tae commerce between the 
western world and India. The navigation of the Gulf, especially along the Arabian coast, is 
tedious and difficult, owing to its numerous islands and reefs. The Bahrein islands, near the 
Arabian shore, are celebrated for their pearl fisheries, which yield pearls of the value of more 
than a million dollars annually. (Map No. V.) 

3. Oedrosia, corresponding to the modern Persian province of Mekran, is a sandy and barren 
region, extending along the shore of the Indian Ocean from the river Indus to the mouth of 
the Persian Gulf. (Map No. V.) 



ite 



ANCIENT HISTORY. f Part I. 



traded in the marshes of Assyria, and which suddenly terminated his 
life in the thirty-third year of his age, and the thirteenth of his 
reign. (B. C. May, 324.) 

21. The character of Alexander has afforded matter for much discus- 
sion, and is, to this da}?-, a subject of dispute. At times he was 
guilty of remorseless and unnecessary cruelty to the vanquished, and 
in a fit of passion he slew the friend who had saved his life ; hut on 
other occasions he was distinguished by an excess of lenity, and by 
the most noble generosity and benevolence. His actions and char- 
acter were indeed of a mixed nature, which is the reason that some 
have regarded him as little more than a heroic madman, while others 
give him the honor of vast and enlightened views of policy, which 
aimed at founding, among nations hitherto barbarous, a solid and 
flourishing empire. 

22. If we are to judge by his actions, however, rather than by his 
supposed moral motives, he was, in reality, one of the greatest of 
men ; great, not only in the vast compass and persevering ardor of 
his ambition, which " wept for more worlds to conquer," but great in 
the objects and aims which ennobled it, and great because his adven- 
turous spirit and personal daring never led him into deeds of rash- 
ness ; for his boldest military undertakings were ever guided by 
sagacity and prudence. The conquests of Alexander were highly 
beneficial in their results to the conquered people ; for his was the 
first of the great monarchies founded in Asia that contained any ele- 
ment of moral and intellectual progress — that opened a prospect of 
advancing improvement, and not of continual degradation, to its 
subjects. To the commercial world it opened new countries, and 
new channels of trade, and gave a salutary stimulus to industry and 
mercantile activity : nor were these benefits lost when the empire 
founded by Alexander broke in pieces in the hands of his successors ; 
for the passages which he opened, by sea and by land, between the 
Euphrates and the Indus, had become the highways of the commerce 
of the Indies; Babylon remained a famous port until its rival, Seleu'- 
cia,^ arose into eminence ; and Alexandria long continued to receive 
and pour out an inexhaustible tide of wealth. 

1. Seleu' cia, built by Seleii' cus, one of Alexander's generals, was situated on the western 
bank of the Tigris, about forty-five miles north of Babylon. Seleu' cus designed it as a free 
Grecian city; and many ages after the fjill of the Macedonian empire, it retained the charac- 
teristics of a Grecian colony, — arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom. When at the 
height of its prosperity it contained a population of six hundred thousand citizens, governed by 
a senate of three hundred nobles. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 103 

23. The sudden death of Alexander left the government in a very 
unsettled condition. As he had aj^pointed no successor, several of his 
generals contended for the throne, or for the regency during the 
minority of his sons ; and hence arose a series of intrigues, and 
bloody wars, which, in the course of twenty-three years, caused the 
destruction of the entire family of Alexander, and ended in the dis- 
Bolution of the Macedonian empire. 

24. When intelligence of the death of Alexander reached Grreece, 
the country was already on the eve of a revolution against Antip'- 
!;ter ; and Demosthenes, still the foremost advocate of liberty, now 
found little difficulty in uniting several of the States with Athens in 
a confederacy against Macedonian supremacy. Sjmrta, however, was 
too proud to act under her ancient rival, and Thebes no longer ex- 
isted. Antip' ater attempted to secure the straits of Thermop' ylsc 
against the confederates, but he was met by Leos' thenes, the Athe- 
nian general, and defeated. Eventually, however, Antip' ater, having 
received strong reinforcements from Mac' edon, attacked the confeder- 
ates, and completely annihilated their army. Athens was compelled 
to abolish her democratic form of government, to receive Macedonian 
garrisons in her fortresses, and to surrender a number of her most 
famous orators, including Demosthenes. The latter, to avoid falling 
into the hands of Antip' ater, terminated his life by poison. 

25. Antip' ater, at his death, left the government in the liands of 
Polysper' chon, as regent during the minority of a son of Alexander ; 
but Cassan' der, the son of Antip' ater, soon after usurped the sover- 
eignty of Greece and Mac' edon, and, for the greater security of liis 
power, caused all the surviving members of the family of Alexander 
to be put to death. Antig' onus, another of Alexander's generals, 
had before this time overrun Syria and Asia Minor, and his am- 
bitious views extended to the undivided sovereignty of all the coun- 
tries which had been ruled by Alexander. Four of the most powerful 
of the other generals, Ptol' emy, Seleu' cus, Lysim' achus, and Cas- 
san' der, formed a league against him, and fought with him the 
famous battle of Ip' sus,^ in Phryg' ia,^ which ended in the defeat 
and death of Antig' onus, the destruction of the power which he had 
raised, and the final dissolution of the Macedonian empire, three 
hundred and one years before the Christian era. 

1. Ip' sus was a city of Phryg' ia, near the southern boundary of Galatia, but its exact lo- 
cality is unknown. {Map No. IV.) 

2. Phryg' ia was the central province of western Asia Minor. {Maps Nos. IV. and V.) 



104 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

26. A new partition of the provinces was now made into four in- 
dependent kingdoms. PtoFemy was confirmed in the possession of 
Egypt, together with Lib' ya, and part of the neighboring territories 
of Arabia ; Seleu' cus received the countries embraced in the east- 
ern conquests of Alexander, and the whole region between the coast 
of Syria and the Euphrates ; but the whole of this vast empire soon 
dwindled into the Syrian monarchy : Lysirn' achus received the 
northern and western portions of Asia Minor, as an appendage to his 
kingdom of Thrace ; while Cassan' der received the sovereignty of 
Greece and Mac' edon. Of these kingdoms, the most powerful were 
Syria and Egypt ; the former of which continued under the dynasty 
of the Seleu' cidae, and the latter under that of the Ptol' emies, until 
both were absorbed in the growing dominion of the Pioman empire. 
Of the kingdom of Thrace under Lysim' achus, we shall have occa- 
sion to speak in its farther connection with Grecian history. 

27. Cassan' der survived the establishment of his power only four 
years. After his death his two sons quarrelled for the succession, 
and called in the aid of foreigners to enforce their claims. Deme- 
trius, son of Antig' onus, having seized the opportunity of inter- 
ference in their disputes, cut off the brother who had invited his aid, 
and made himself master of the throne of Mac' edon, which was en- 
joyed by his posterity, except during a brief interruption after his 
death, down to the time of the Eoman conquest. Demetrius possessed 
in addition to Mac' edon, Thes' saly. At' tica, and Boeotia, together 
with a great portion of the Peloponnesus; but his government was 
that of a pure military despotism, which depended on the army for 
support, wholly independent of the good will of the people. Aim- 
ing to recover his father's power in Asia, he excited the jealousy of 
Seleu' cus, king of Syria, who was able to induce Lysim' achus, of 
Thrace, and Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus, to commence a war against 
him. The latter twice overran Macedonia, and even seized the 
throne, which he held during a few months, while Demetrius was 
driven from the kingdom by his own rebellious subjects ; but his son 
Antig' onus maintained himself in Peloponnesus, waiting a favorable 
opportunity of placing himself on the throne of his father. 

28. During a number of years Mac' edon, Greece, and Western 
Asia, were harassed with the wars excited by the various aspirants 
to power, Lysim' achus was defeated and slain in a war with Se- 
leu' cus ; and the latter, invading Thrace, was assassinated by 
Ptol' emy Cerau' nus, who then usurped the government of Thrace 



Chap. IV.] aRECIAN HISTOTIY. 105 

and Mac' edon. In this situation of affairs, a storm, unseen in the 
distance, but which had long been gathering, suddenly burst upon 
Mac' edon, threatening to convert, by its ravages, the whole Grrecian 
peninsula into a scene of desolation. 

29. A vast horde of barbarians of the Celtic race had for some 
time been accumulating around the head waters of the Adriat' ic,^ 
making Pannonia^ the chief seat of their power. Influenced by 
hopes of plunder, rather than of conquest, they suddenly appeared 
on the frontiers of Mac' edon, and sent an embassy to Cerau' nus, 
offering peace if he were willing to purchase it by tribute. A 
haughty defiance from the Macedonian served only to quicken the 
march of the invaders, who defeated and killed Cerau' nus in a great 
battle, and so completely routed his army that almost all were slain 
or taken. (B. C. 280.) The conquerors then overran all Mac' edon 
to the borders of Thes' saly, and a detachment made a devastating 
inroad into the rich vale of the Peneus. The walled towns alone, 
which the barbarians had neither the skill nor the patience to reduce 
by siege, held out until the storm had spent its fury, when the Celts, 
scattered over the country in plundering parties, having met with 
some reverses, gradually withdrew from a country where there was 
little left to tempt their cupidity. 

30. In the following year (279 B. C.) another band of Celts, esti- 
mated at two hundred thousand men, under the guidance of their 
principal Brenn or chief, called Bren' nus, overran Macedonia with 
little resistance, and passing through Thessaly, threatened to extend 
their ravages over southern Greece ; but the allied Grecians, under 
the Athenian general, Cal'lipus, met them at Thermop' ylse, and at 
first repulsed them with considerable loss. Eventualiy, however, 
the secret path over the mountains was betrayed to the Celts as it 
had been to the Persian army of Xerxes, and the Grecians were 
forced to retreat. A part of the barbarian army, under Bren' nus, 
then marched into Phocis, for the purpose of plundering Delphi; 
but their atrocities roused against them the whole population, and 
they found their entire march, over roads mountainous and difficult, 

1. The Jldriaf ic or Hadriatic (now most generally culled the Gulf of Venice) is that large 
arm of the Mediterranean sea which lies between Italy and the opposite shores of lllyr' ia, 
Epirus, and Greece. The southern portion of the gulf is now, as anciently, called the Ionian 
sea. The Adriat' ic derived its name from the once flourishing sea-port town of A'dria north 
of the river Po. The harbor of A' dria has long been filled up by the mud and other deposits 
brought down by the rivers, and the town is now nineteen miles inland. {Map No. VIII.) 

2. Pannonia, afterwards a Roman province, was north of lUyr' ia, having the Danube for its 
northern and eastern boundary. (Map No. VIII & IX.) 



106 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

"beset with enemies burning for revenge. The invaders also suffered 
greatly from the cold and storms in the defiles of the mountains. It 
was said that the gods fought for the sacred temple, and that an 
earthquake rent the rocks, and brought down huge masses on the 
heads of the assailants. Certain it is that the invaders, probably 
acted upon by superstitious terror, were repulsed and disheartened. 
Bren' nus, who had been wounded before Delphi, is said to have killed 
himself in despair ; and only a remnant of the barbarians regained 
their original seats on the Adriat' ic. 

31. After the repulse of the Celts, Antig' onus, the son of Deme- 
trius, was able to gain possession of the throne of Mac' edon, but he 
found a formidable competitor in Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus, who re- 
solved to add Mac' edon, and, if possible, the whole of Greece to his 
own dominion. Pyr' rhus had no sooner returned from his famous 
expedition into Italy, of which we shall have occasion to speak in 
Roman history,^ than he seized a pretext for declaring war against 
An tig' onus, and invaded Macedonia with his small army, (274 B. C.) 
the remnant of the forces which he had led against Rome, but which 
he now strengthened with a body of Celtic mercenaries. When 
Antig' onus marched against him, many of his troops, who had little 
affection or respect for their king, went over to Pyr' rhus, whose 
celebrated military prowess had won their admiration. 

32. Antig' onus then retired into Southern G-reece, whither he 
was followed by Pyr' rhus, who professed that the object of his expe- 
dition was merely to restore the freedom of the cities which were held 
in subjection by his rival ; but when he reached the borders of 
Laconia he laid aside the mask, and began to ravage the country, 
and made an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Sparta, which was lit- 
tle prepared for defence. He then marched to Ar' gos, whither he 
had been invited by one of the rival leaders of the people, but he 
found Antig' onus, at the head of a strong force, encamped on one 
of the neighboring heights. Pyr' rhus gained entrance into the city 
by night, through treachery, but at the same time the troops of Antig '- 
onus were admitted from an opposite quarter — the citizens arose in 
arms, and a fierce struggle was carried on in the streets until day- 
light, when Pyr' rhus himself was slain (272 B. C.) by the hand of an 
Ar'give woman, who, exasperated at seeing him about to kill her son, 
hurled upon him a ponderous tile from the house-toji. The greater 
part of the army of Pyr' rhus, chiefly composed of Macedonians, 

a. See page 119. 



Chap. IV.J GRECIAN HISTORY. 107 

then went over to their former sovereign, who soon after gained the 
throne of Mac' edon, which he held until his death. 

33. The death of Pyr' rhus forms an important epoch in Grecian 
history, as it put an end to the struggle for power among Alexander's 
successors in the West, and left the field clear for the final contest 
between the liberty of G-reece and the power of Mac' edon, which 
was only terminated by the ruin of both. When Antig'onus re- 
turned to Mac' edon, its acknowledged sovef^eign, he cherished tlie 
hope of ultimately reducing all Greece to his sway, little dreaming 
that the power centered in a recent league of a few Achae' an cities 
was destined to become a formidable adversary to his house. 

34. The Achce! an League comprised at first twelve towns of 
Achaia, which were associated together for mutual safety, forming a 
little federal republic — all the towns having an ec[uality yii. ach.e' a\ 
of representation in the general government, to which league. 
all matters affecting the common welfore were intrusted, each town 
at the same time retaining the regulation of its own domestic policy. 
The Achas' an league did not become of sufficient political importance 
to attract the attention of Antig' onus until about twenty years after 
the death of Pyr' rhus, when Aratus, an exile from Sic' yon, at the 
head of a small band of followers, surprised the city by night, and 
without any bloodshed delivered it from the dominion of the tyrants 
who, under Macedonian protection, had long oppressed it with 
despotic sway. (251 B. C.) Fearful of the hostility of Antig'onus, 
Aratus induced Sic' yon to join the Achai' an league, and although 
its power greatly exceeded that of any Aclia)' an town, it claimed no 
superiority of privilege over the other members of the confederacy, 
but obtained only one vote in the general council of the league ; a 
precedent whicli was afterwards strictly adhered to in the admission 
of other cities. Aratus received the most distiuguished honors from 
the Achie'ans, and, a few years after the accession of Sic' yon, was 
placed at the head of the armies of the confederacy. (B. C. 246.) 

35. Corinth, the key to Greece, having been seized by a stratagem 
of Antig' onus, and its citadel occupied by a Macedonian garrison, 
was rescued by a bold enterprise of Aratus, and induced to join the 
league. (243 B. C.) Other cities successively gave in their adhe- 
rence, until the confederacy embraced nearly the whole of Pelopon- 
nesus. Although Athens did not unite- with it, yet Aratus obtained 
the withdrawal of its Macedonian garrison. Sparta opposed the 
league — induced Ar' gos and Corinth to withdraw from it — and by 



108 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I. 

her successes over the Achse' ans, eventually induced them to call in 
the aid of the Macedonians, their former enemies. 

36. Antig' onus II., readily embracing the opportunity of restor- 
ing the influence of his family in Southern Greece, marched against 
the Lacedsemonians, over whom he obtained a decisive victory, 
which placed Sparta at his mercy. But he used his victory moder- 
ately, and granted the Spartans peace on liberal terms. On his 
death, which occurred • soon after, he was succeeded on the throne 
of Mac' edon by his nephew and adopted son, Philip II., a youth of 
only seventeen. 

37. The ^tolians,^ the rudest of the Grecian tribes, who had 
acquired the character of a nation of freebooters and pirates, had 
at this time formed a league similar to the Achas' an, and counting 
on the inexperience of the youthful Philip, and the weakness of the 
Achge' ans, began a series of unprovoked aggressions on the sur- 
rounding States. The Messenians, whose territory they had invaded 
by way of the western coast of the Peloponnesus, called upon the 
Achas' ans for assistance, but Aratas, going to their relief, was attack- 
ed unexpectedly, and defeated. Soon after, the youthful Philip was 
placed at the head of the Achae' an League, when a general war be- 
gan between the Macedonians, Achae' ans, and their confederates, 
on the one side, and the ^tolians, who were aided by the Spartans 
and E' leans, on the other. 

38. The war continued four years, and was conducted with great 
cruelty and obstinacy on both sides ; but Philip and the Achag' ans 
were on the whole successful, and the ^tolians and their allies be- 
came desirous of peace, while new and ambitious views more eagerly 
inclined Philip to put an end to the unprofitable contest. At this 
time the Carthaginians and Romans were contending for mastery 
in the second Punic war, and Philip began to view the struggle as 
one in which an alliance with one of the parties would be desirable, 
by opening to himself prospects of future conquest and glory. By 
siding with the Carthaginians, who were the most distant party, and 
from whom he would have less to fear than from the Romans, he 
lioped to be able eventually to insure to himself the sovereignty of 
all Greece, and to make additions to Macedonia on the side of Italy. 
He therefore proposed terms of peace to the ^tolians ; and a treaty 

1. JEtolia was a country of Northern Greece, bounded on the north by Thes' salj', on the 
cast by Doris, Phocis, and Locris, on the south by the Corinthian Gulf, and on the west by 
Acamania. It was in general a rough and mountainous country, although some of the valleyn 
were remarkable for their fertility. (Man No. I.) 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN HISTORY. 109 

was concluded at Naupac' tus, which left all the parties in the war in 
the enjoyment of their respective possessions. (217 B. C.) 

39. After the great battle of Can' nae,* which seemed to have ex- 
tinguished the last hopes of Rome, Philip sent envoys to Hannibal, 
the Carthaginian general, and concluded with him a treaty of strict 
alliance. He next sailed with a small fleet up the Adriat' ic, and 
while besieging Appollonia,^ a town in Illyr' ia, was met and defeated 
by the Roman praetor, M. Valerius, who had been sent to succor 
the Illyr' ians. (215 B. C.) Philip was forced to burn his ships, 
and retreat over land to Macedonia, leaving his baggage, and the 
arms of many of his troops, in the enemy's hands. Such was the 
unfortunate issue of his first encounter with the Roman soldiery. 

40. Soon after his return to Macedonia, finding Aratus in the 
way of his projects against the liberties of Southern Gi-reece, he 
contrived to have the old general removed by slow poison ; — a crime 
which filled all Greece with horror and indignation. In the mean- 
time, the Romans, while recovering ground in Italy, contrived to 
keep Philip busy at home, by inciting the ^tolians to violate the 
recent treaty, and inducing Sparta and E'lis to join in a war against 
Mac'edon. Still Philip, supported for awhile by the Achae'ans, 
under their renowned leader, Philopoe' men, maintained his ground, 
until, first, the Athenians, no longer able to protect their fallen for- 
tunes, solicited aid from the Romans ; and finally, the Ach^' ans 
themselves, being divided into factions, accepted terms of peace. 

41. Philip continued to struggle against his increasing enemies, 
until, being defeated in a great battle with the Romans,^ he pur- 
chased peace by the sacrifice of the greater part of his navy, the 
payment of a tribute, and the resignation of his supremacy over the 
Grecian States. At the celebration of the Isth' mian games at 
Corinth the terms of the Roman senate were made known to the 
Grecians, who received, with the height of exultation, the proclama- 
tion that the independence of Greece was restored, under the au- 
spices of the Roman arms. (196 B. C.) 

42. Probably nothing was farther from the intention of the Roman 
senate than to allow the Grecian States to regain their ancient power 
and sovereignty, and it was sufiicient to damp the joy of the more 

J, JipollSnia was situated on the northern side of Ihe river Aous (now Vojutza), near its 
mouth. Its ruins still retain the name of Pollini. Apollouia was founded by a colony from 
Corinth and Corcyra, and, according to Strabo, was renowned for the wisdom of its laws. 

a. See p. 158. b. Battle of Cynocephalue, 197 B. C. See p. IGl. 



110 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part! 

considerate that the boon of freedom which Rome affected to bestow 
was tendered by a master who could resume it at his pleasure. At 
the first opportunity of interference, therefore, which opened to the 
Romans, the ^Etolians, who had espoused the cause of Antiochus, 
king of Syria, the enemy of Rome, were reduced to poverty and de- 
prived of their independence. At a later period Per' sens, the suc- 
cessor of Philip on the throne of Mac' edon, being driven into a war 
by Roman ambition, finally lost his kingdom in the battle of Pyd' na,^ 
in which twenty thousand Macedonians were slain, and ten thousand 
taken prisoners, while the Roman army, commanded by Ldcius 
^mil'ius Panlus, lost scarcely a hundred men. (168 B. C.) The 
Macedonian monarchy was extinguished, and Per' seus himself, a 
wanderer from his country, was taken prisoner in an island of the 
^'gean, and conveyed to Rome to grace the triumph of the con- 
queror. 

43. Soon after the fall of Per' seus, the Achse' ans were charged 
with having aided him in the war against Rome, and, without a 
shadow of proof, one thousand of their worthiest citizens, among 
whom was the historian Polyb' ius, were sent to Rome to prove their 
innocence of this charge before a Roman tribunal. (167 B. C.) 
Here they were detained seventeen years without being able to obtain 
a hearing, when three hundred of the number, the only surviving 
remnant of the thousand, were finally restored to their country. The 
exiles returned, burning with vengeance against the Romans ; other 
causes of animosity arose; and when a Roman embassy, sent to 
Corinth, declared the will of the Roman senate that the Achse' an 
League should be reduced to its original limits, a popular tumult 
arose, and the Roman ambassadors were publicly insulted. 

44. War soon followed. The Achte' ans and their allies were de- 
feated b}^ the consul Mum' mius near Corinth, and that city, then the 
richest in Greece, after being plundered of its treasures, was con- 
signed to the flames. The last blow to the liberties of the Hellenic 
race had been struck, and all Grreece, as far as Epirus and Macedo- 
nia, now beeom'e a Roman province, under the name of Achaia. 
(146 B. C.) " The end of the Achas' an war," says Thirwall, " was 
the last stage of the lingering process by which Rome enclosed her 
victim in the coils of her insidious diplomacy, covered it with the 

1. Pyd'na was a city near the south-eastern extremity of Macedonia, on the wcsiern shore of 
the Thermaic Gulf, (now Gulf of Saloniki.) The ancient Pydna is now called Kidros. Dr. 
Clarke observed here a vast mound of earth, which he considered, with much probability, as 
marking tlie site of the great battle fought there by the Roman;-, and Macedonians. {Jrlup No. I.) 



Chap. VI.] JEWISH HISTORY. 1 1 1 

slime of her sycophants and hirelings, crushed it when it began to 
struggle, and then calmly preyed upon its vitals." 

45. We have now arrived at the proper termination of G-recian 
histor}^ Niebuhr has remarked, that, " as rivers flow into the sea, 
so does the history of all the nations, known to have existed pre- 
viously in the regions around the Mediterranean, terminate in that 
of Kome." Henceforward, then, the history of Greece becomes in- 
volved in the changing fortunes of the Roman empire, to whose early 
annals we shall now return, after a brief notice of the cotemporary 
history of surrounding nations. With the loss of her liberties the 
glory of G-reece had passed away. Her population had been gradu- 
ally diminishing since the period of the Persian wars ; and from the 
epoch of the Roman conquest the spirit of the nation sunk into de- 
spondency, and the energies of the people gradually wasted, until, no 
later than the days of Strabo,^ Greece existed only in the remembrance 
of the past. Then, many of her cities were desolate, or had sunk to 
insignificant villages, while Athens alone maintained her renown for 
philosophy and the arts, and became the instructor of her conquer- 
ors ; — large tracts of land, once devoted to tillage, were either barren, 
or had been converted into pastures for sheep, and vast herds of 
cattle; while the rapacity of Roman governors had inflicted upon 
the sparse population impoverishment and ruin. 

COTEMPORARY HISTORY: 490 to 146 B. C. 

1. Of the cotemporary annals of other nations during the authentic 
period of Grecian histor}'^, there is little of importance to be nar- 
rated beyond what will be found connected with Roman afi'airs in a 
subsequent chapter ; although the Grecian cities of Italy, Sicily, and 
Cyrenaica, considered not as dependent colonies of the parent State, but 
as separate powers, will require some further notice. Of the history 
of the Medes and Persians we have already given the most interesting 
portion. Of Egyptian history little is known, beyond what has been 
narrated, until the beginning of the dynasty of the Ptol' emies (301 
B. C.,) and of the events from that period down to the time of Ro- 
man interference in the aff'airs of Egypt, we have room for only occa- 
sional notices, as connected with the more important i. ihstory 
histories of other nations. Of the civil annals of the o^ '^'"'^ -^"'"^^s- 
Jews we shall give a brief sketch, so as to continue, from a preced- 

1. Straho was a celebrated geographer, born at Amasia in Pontiis, about the year 54 B. C. 



112 ANCIENT HISTORY. [PartI. 

ing chapter, the history of Judea down to the time when that country 
became a province of the Roman empire. 

2. It has been stated that the rebuilding of the second temple of 
Jerusalem was completed during the reign of Darius Hystas'pes, 
about twenty-five years before the commencement of the war between 
the Greeks and Persians. During the following reign of Xerxes, the 
Jews appear to have been treated by their masters with respect, and 
also during the early part of the reign of Artaxerx' es Longimanus, 
who had taken for his second wife a Jewish damsel named Esther, 
the niece of the Jew Mor' decai, one of the officers of the palace. 
The story of Haman, the wicked minister of the king, is doubtless 
familiar to all our readers. After the Jews had been delivered from 
the wanton malice of Haman, Nehemiah, also an officer in the king's 
palace, obtained for them permission to rebuild the walls of the holy 
city, and was appointed governor over Judea. With the close of 
the administration of Nehemiah the annals embraced in the Old 
Testament end, and what farther reliable information we possess of 
the history of the Jews down to the time of the Roman conquest is 
mostly derived from Josephus. 

3. After Nehemiah, Judea was joined to the satrapy of Syria, al- 
though the internal government was still administered by the high- 
priests, under the general superintendence of Persian officers — the 
people remaining quiet under the Persian government. After the 
division of the vast empire of Alexander among his generals, Judea, 
lying between Syria and Egypt, and being coveted by the monarchs 
of both, suffered greatly from the wars which they carried on against 
each other. At one time the Egyptian monarch, Ptol' emy Soter, 
having invaded the country, stormed Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, 
when the Jews, from superstitious motives, would not defend their 
city, and transported a hundred thousand of the population to 
Egypt, — apparently, however, as colonists, rather than as prisoners. 

4. During the reigns of PtoF emy Soter, Ptol' emy PhiladeF phus, 
Ptol' emy Euer' getes, and Ptol' emy Philop' ater, Judea remained 
subject to Egypt, but was lost by Ptol' emy Epiph' anes. Ptol' emy 
Philadel' phus, by his generous treatment of the Jews, induced large 
numbers of them to settle in Egypt. He was an eminent patron of 
learning, and caused the septuagint translation of the scriptures to be 
made, and a copy to be deposited in the famous library which he es- 
tablished at Alexandria. On the accession of Ptol' emy Epiph' anes 
to the throne, (204 B. C.) at the age of only five years, Antiochus 



Chap. IV.] JEWISH HISTORY. 113 

the Great, king of Syria, easily persuaded the Jew^ to place them- 
selves under his rule, and in return for their confidence in him he 
conferred such favors upon Jerusalem as he knew were best calculated 
to win the hearts of the people. 

5. Antiochus Epiph' anes, the successor of Antiochus the Great, 
having invaded Egypt, a false rumor of his death was brought to 
Jerusalem, whereupon a civil war broke out between two factions of 
the Jews who had long been quarrelling about the office of the high- 
priesthood. The tumult was quelled by the return of Antiochus, 
v/ho, exasperated on learning that the Jews had made public rejoic- 
ings at his supposed death, marched against Jerusalem, which he 
plundered, as if he had taken it by storm from an enemy. (169 B. C.) 
He even despoiled the temple of its holy vessels, and carried off the 
treasures of the nation collected there. Two years later he attempted 
to carry out the plan of reducing the various religious systems of his 
empire to one single profession, that of the Grecian polytheism. He 
polluted the altar of the temple — ^put a stop to the daily sacrifice — 
to the great festivals — to the rite of circumcision — burned the copies 
of the law — and commanded that the temple itself should be convert- 
ed into an edifice sacred to the Olympian Jupiter. 

6. These acts, and the insolent cruelties with which they were ac- 
companied, met with a fierce and desperate resistance from the brave 
family of the Mac' cabees,^ or Asmoneans, who, under their heroio 
leader Judas, first fled to the wilderness, and the caves of the moun- 
tians, where they were joined by numerous bands of their exasperated 
countrymen, who, ere long, began to look upon Judas as an instru- 
ment appointed by heaven for their deliverance. Thoroughly ac- 
quainted with every impregnable cliff and defile of his mountain- 
land, Judas was successful in every encounter in which he chose to 
engage with the Syrians : — by rapid assaults he made himself master 
of many fortified places, and within three years after the pollution 
of the temple he had driven out of Judea four generals at the head 
of large and regular armies. He then went up to Jerusalem, and 
although a fortress in the lower city was still held by a Syrian garri- 
son, he restored the walls and doors of the temple, caused the daily 
sacrifice to be renewed, and proclaimed a solemn festival of eight days 
on the joyful occasion. 

a. The appellation o{ Mac' cabees was given them from the initial letters of the text displayed 
on their standard, which was, Mi Chamoka Baalim^ Jahoh ! " Who is like unto thee among 
the gods, O Lord !"— from Exod. xv. 11. 

8 



114 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

7. The war with Syria continued during the brief reign of the 
youthful son of Antiochus Epij^h' anes, and was extended into the 
subsequent reign of Demetrius Soter, (B. C. 162,) who sent two 
powerful armies into Judea, the first of which was defeated in the 
defile of Bethoron,^ and its general slain. Another army was more 
successful, and Judas himself fell, after having destroyed a multi- 
tude of his enemies ; but his body was recovered, and he was buried 
in the tomb of his fathers. " And all Israel mourned him with a 
(^reat mourning, and sorrowed many days, and said. How is the 
mighty fallen that saved Israel." 

8. After the death of Judas a time of great tribulation followed; 
the Syrians became masters of the country, and Jonathan, the brother 
of Judas, the new leader of the patriotic band, was obliged to retire 
to the mountains, where he maintained himself two years, while the 
cities were occupied by Syrian garrisons. Eventually, during the 
changing revolutions in the Syrian empire itself, Jonathan was en- 
abled to establish himself in the priesthood, and under his adminis- 
tration Judea again became a flourishing State. Being at length 
treacherously murdered by one of the Syrian kings, (B. C. 143,) his 
brother Simon succeeded to the priesthood, and during the seven 
years in which he judged Israel, general prosperity prevailed through- 
out the land. " The husbandmen tilled the field in peace, and the 
earth gave forth her crops, and the trees of the plain their fruits. 
The old men sat in the streets ; all talked together of their blessings, 
and the young men put on the glory and the harness of war." 

9. The remaining history of the Jews, from the time of Simon 
down to the formation of Judea into a Roman province, is mostly 
occupied with domestic commotions, whose details would possess 
little interest for the general reader. The circumstances which 
placed Judea under the sway of the Romans will be found detailed 
in their connection with Roman history. 

10. Before the beginning of the "authentic period" of Grrecian 
history, various circumstances, such as the desire of adventure, com- 

II. GRECIAN niercial interests, and, not unfrequently, civil dissensions 

COLONIES, at home, led to the planting of Grrecian colonies on many 

distant coasts of the Mediterranean. Those of Thrace, Mac' edon, 

and Asia-Minor, were ever intimately connected with G-reece proper, 

in whose general history theirs is embraced ; but the Grreek cities 

1. Bethoron was a village about ten miles north-west from Jerusalem. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 115 

of Italy, Sicily, and Cyrenaica, were too far removed from the drama 
that was enacting around the shores of the ^'gean to be more than 
occasionally and temporarily aifected by the changing fortunes of the 
parent States. Nevertheless, a brief notice of those distant settle- 
ments that eventually rivalled even Athens and Sparta in power and 
resources, cannot be uninteresting, and it will serve to give the reader 
more accurate views, than he would otherwise possess, of the extent 
and importance of the field of Grecian history. 

11. At an early period the shores of southern Italy and Sicily 
were peopled by Greeks; and so numerous and powerful did the 
Grecian cities in those countries become, that the whole were comprised 
by Strabo and others under the appellation Magna m, magna 
GrcEcia or "Great Greece" — an appropriate name for a gr-ecia. 
region containing many cities far superior in size and population to 
any in Greece itself The earliest of these distant Grecian settle- 
ments appear to have been made at Cumse,^ and Neap' olis,^ on the 
western coast of Italy, about the middle of the eleventh century 
Nax' os,^ on the eastern coast of Sicily, was founded about the year 
735 B. C. ; and in the following year some Corinthians laid the 
foundation of Syracuse. Gela,* on the western coast of the island, 
and Messana^ on the strait between Italy and Sicily, were foundeC 

1. CiimcB^ a city of Campania, on the western coast of Italy, a short distance north-west from 
NeapoUs, and about a hundred and ten miles south-east from Rome, is supposed to have been 
founded by a Grecian colony from Euboe'a about the year 1050 B. C. Cumae was built on a 
rocky hill washed by the sea ; and the same name is still applied to the ruins that lie scattered 
around its base. Some of the most splendid Actions of Virgil relate to the Cumaean Sibyl, 
whose cave, hewn out of solid rock, actually existed on the top of the hill of Cumag. (^Maj) 
No. VIII.) 

2. J\rcap' olis, (a Greek word meaning the new citij,) now called JVaples, was founded by a 
colony from Cumae. It is situated on the north side of the Bay of Naples, in the immediate 
vicinity of Mount Vesuvius, one himdred and eighteen miles south-east from Rome. (Map 
No. VIII.) 

3. JVax' OS was north-east from Mount ^Etna, and about equi-distant from Messana and 
Cat' ana. Nax' os was twice destroyed ; first by Dionysius the Elder, and afterwards by the 
Siculi ; after which Tauromghium was built on its site. The modem Taormina occupies the 
site of the ancient city. {Map No. VIII.) 

4. Oela was on the southern coast of Sicih'^, a short distance from the sea, on a river of the 
same name, and about sixty miles west from Syracuse. On the site of the ancient city stands 
the modern Terra Mova. (Map No. VIII.) 

5. Messana, still a city of considerable extent under the name of Messina, was situated at 
the north-eastern extremity of the island of Sicily, on the strait of its own name. It was re- 
garded by the Greeks as the key of the island, but the circumstance of its commanding position 
always made it a tempting prize to the ambitious and powerful neighboring princes. It under- 
went a great variety of changes, under the power of the Syracusans, Carthaginians, and Ro- 
mans. It was treacherously seized by the Mamertiui, (see p. 152) who slew the males, and took 
the wives and children as their property, and called the city Mamertina. Finally, a portion of 
the inhabitants called in the aid of the Romans, and thus began the first Punic war. CSCS B. C.) 



116 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

soon after. Agrigen' turn/ on the south-western coast, was founded 
about a century later. 

12. In the meantime the Greek cities Syb'aris, Crotona,' and 
Taren' turn,* had been planted, and had rapidly grown to power and 
opulence, on the south-eastern coast of Italy. The territorial do- 
minions of Syb' aris and Crotona extended across the peninsula from 
sea to sea. The former possessed twenty-five dependent towns, and 
ruled over four distinct tribes or nations. The territories of Crotona 
were still more extensive. These two Grecian States were at the 
maximum of their power about the year 560 B. C. — the time of the 
accession of Pisis' tratus at Athens ; but they quarrelled with each 
other, and the result of the fatal contest was the ruin of Syb' aris, 
510 B. C. At the time of the invasion of Italy by Pyr'rhus, (see 
p. 149.) Crotona was still a considerable city, extending on both sides 
of the jEsarus, and its walls embracing a circumference of twelve 
miles. Taren' tum was formed by a colony from Sparta about the 
year 707, — soon after the first Messenian war. No details of its his- 
tory during the first two hundred and thirty years of its existence 



" The modern city has a most imposing appearance from the sea, forming a fine circular 
sweep about two miles in length on the west shore of its magnificent harbor, from which it 
rises in the form of an amphitheatre ; and being built of white stone, it strikingly contrasts 
with the dark fronts that cover the forests in the background." (Map No. VIII.) 

1. Jlgrigcn' turn was situated near the southern shore of Sicily, about midway of the island. 
Next to Syracuse it was not only one of the largest and most famous cities of Sicily, but of the 
ancient world ; and its ruins are still imposingly grand and magnificent. The modern town 
of Oirgenti lies adjacent to the ruins, from which it is separated by the small river Arcagas. 
{Map No. VIII.) 

2. Syb' aris was a city of south-eastern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf. Crotona was about 
seventy miles south of it. Pythogoras resided at Crotona during the latter years of his life ; 
and Milo, the most celebrated athlete of antiquity, was a native of that city. The Sybarites 

were noted for the excess to which they carried the refinements of luxury and sensuality. 

The events which led to the destruction of Syb' aris, about 510 B. C, are thus related. A 
democratical party, having gained the ascendancy at Syb' aris, expelled five hundred of the 
principal citizens, who sought refuge at Crotona. The latter refusing, by the advice of Pytha- 
goras, to give up the fugitives, a war ensued. Milo led out the Crotoniats, ten thousand in 
number, who were met by three hundred thousand Syb' antes ; but the former gained a com- 
plete victory, and then, marching Immediately to Syb' aris, totally destroyed the city. {Map 
No. VIII.) 

3. Taren' tum, the emporium of the Greek towns of Italy, was an important commercial 
city near the head of the gulf of the same name. It stood on what was formerly an isthmus, 
but which is now an island, separating the gulf from an inner bay fifteen or sixteen miles in 
circumference. The early Tarentines were noted for their military skill and prowess, and for 
the cultivation of literature and the arts ; but their wealth and abundance so enervated their 
minds and bodies, and corrupted their morals, that even the neighboring barbarians, who had 
hated and feared, learned eventually to despise them. The Tarentines fell an easy prey to the 
Romans, after Pyrrhus had withdrawn from Italy. (See p. 150.) The modern town of Toranto, 
containing a population of about eighteen thousand inhabitants, occupies the site of the ancient 
city. (J)fa;> No. VIII.) 



Chap. IV.j GRECIAN COLONIES. 1 it 

are known to us ; but in the fourth century B. C. the Tarentlnes 
stand foremost among the Italian Greeks. 

13. During the first two centuries after the founding of Nax'os in 
Sicily, Grrecian settlements were extended over the eastern, southern, 
and western sides of the island, while Him' era^ was the only Gre- 
cian town on the northern coast. These two hundred years were a 
period of prosperity among the Sicilian Greeks, who did not yet ex- 
tend their residences over the island, but dwelt chiefly in fortified 
towns, and exercised authority over the surrounding native popula- 
tion, which gradually became assimilated in manners, language, and 
religion, to the higher civilization of the Greeks. During the sixth 
century before the Christian era, the Greek cities in Sicily and 
southern Italy were among the most powerful and flourishing that 
bore the Hellenic name. Gela and Agrigen' tum, on the south sido 
of Sicily, had then become the most prominent of the independent 
Sicilian governments ; and at the beginning of the fifth century we 
find Gelo, a despot, or self-constituted ruler of the former city, sub- 
jecting other towns to his authority, and finally obtaining possession 
of Syracuse, which he made the seat of his empire, (485 B. C.) 
leaving Gela to be governed by his brother Hiero, the first Sicilian 
ruler of that name. 

14. Gelo strengthened the fortifications and greatly enlarged the 
limits of Syracuse, while, to occupy the enlarged space, he dis- 
mantled many of the surrounding towns, and transported their inhab- 
itants to his new capital, which now became, not only the first city 
in Sicily, but, according to Herod' otus, superior to any other Helle- 
nic power; for we are told that when, in 481 B. C, the Corinthians 
solicited aid from Gelo to resist the invasion of Xerxes, the Syracu- 
sans could offer twenty thousand heavy armed soldiers, and, in all, an 
army of thirty thousand men, besides furnishing provisions for the 
entire Grecian host so long as the war might last ; but as Gelo de- 
manded to be constituted commander-in-chief of all the Greeks in 
the war against the Persians, the terms were not agreed to. 

15. During the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, a formidable Car- 
thaginian force under Hamil' car, said to consist of three hundred 
thousand men, landed at Panor' mus,'' a Carthaginian sea-port on the 



1. Hlvi' era vfas on the northern coast of Sicily, near the mouth of llie river of the same 
name, one hundred and ten miles north-west from Syracuse. The modern town of Termini^ 
at the mouth of the river Leonardo, occupies the site of the ancient city, {Mnp No. VIII.) 

2. Panor' mus, supposed to have been first fjcttlcd by Phoenicians, was in tlie north-we«lern 



118 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

northern coast of the island, and proceeded to attack the G^reek city 
of Him' era. (480 B. C.) Gelo, at the head of fifty-five thousand 
men, marched to the aid of his brethren ; and in a general battle 
which ensued, the entire Carthaginian force was destroyed, or com- 
pelled to surrender, Hamil' car himself being numbered among the 
slain. The victory of Him' era procured for Sicily immunity from 
foreign war, while at the same time the defeat of Xerxes at Sal' amis 
dispelled the terrific cloud that overhung the Greeks in that quarter. 

16. On the death of Gelo, a year after the battle of Him' era, the 
government fell into the hands of his brother Hiero, a man whose 
many great and noble qualities were alloyed by insatiable cupidity 
and ambition. The power of Hiero, not inferior to that of Gelo, 
was probably greater than that of any other G-recian ruler of that 
period. Hiero aided the G-reek cities of Italy against the Carthagi- 
nian and Tyrrhenian fleets ; he founded the city of ^t' na,^ and 
added other cities to his government. He died after a reign of ten 
years, and was succeeded by his brother Thrasybnlis, whose cruelties 
led to his speedy dethronement, which was followed, not only by the 
extinction of the Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse, but by an extensive 
revolution in the other Sicilian cities, resulting, after many years of 
civil dissensions, in the expulsion of the other despots who had relied 
for protection on the great despot of Syracuse, and the establish- 
ment of governments more or less democratical throughout the 
island. 

17. The G-elonian d}Tiasty had stripped of their possessions, and 
banished, great numbers of citizens, whose places were filled by for- 
eign mercenaries ; but the popular revolution reversed many of these 
proceedings, and restored the exiles ; although, in the end, adherents 
of the expelled dynasty were allowed to settle partly in the territory 
of Messana, and partly in Kamarina.^ After the commotions at- 
tendant on these changes had subsided, prosperity again dawned on 



part of Sicily, and had a good and capacious harbor. It early passed into the hands of the 
Carthaginians, and was their stronghold in Magna Griecia. It is now called Palermo^ and is 
the capital city and principal sea-jiort of Sicily, having a population of about one hundred and 
fifty thousand inhabitants. It is built on the south-west side of the Bay of Palermo, in a plain, 
Avhich, from its luxuriance, and from its being surrounded by mountains on three sides, has 
been termed the " golden shell," conca cV oro. {Map No. VII f.) 

1. ^t' Tia, first called fnessus, was a small town on the southern declivity of Mount ^t' na, 
near Cat' ana. The ancient site, now marked with ruin?, bears the name Castro. (Map No. 
VIII.) 

2. Kamarina was on the southern cfast, about fifty miles south-west from Syracuse, and 
twenty miles south-east from Gela. 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 119 

Sicily, and tlie subsequent period of more than fifty years, to the 
time of the elder Dionysius, has been described as by far the best 
and happiest portion of Sicilian history. 

18. At the time of the breaking out of the Pelopounesian war, 
431 B. C, Syracuse was the foremost of the Sicilian cities in power 
and resources. Agrigen' tum was but little inferior to her, while in her 
foreign commerce and her public monuments the latter was not sur- 
passed by any Grecian city of that age. In the great Pelopounesian 
struggle, the Ion' ic cities of Sicily, few in number, very naturally 
sympathized with Athens, and the Dorian cities with Sparta ; and in 
the fifth year of the war we find the Ion' ic cities soliciting Athens 
for aid against Syracuse and her allies. Successive expeditions were 
sent out by Athens, and soon nearly all Sicily was involved in the 
war, when at length, in 424 B. C, a congress of the Sicilian cities 
decided upon a general peace among themselves, to the great dissat- 
isfaction of the Athenians, who were already anticipating important 
conquests on the island. 

19. A few years later, (417 B. C.,) a quarrel broke out between 
the neighboring Sicilian cities Selinus and Eges' ta,^ the latter of 
which, although not of Grecian origin, had formerly been in alliance 
with Athens. Selinus was aided by the Syracusans ; and Eges' ta 
applied to Athens for assistance, making false representations of her 
own resources, and enlarging upon the dangers to be apprehended 
from Syracusan aggrandizement as a source of strength to Sparta. 
The Athenian Nic' ias, most earnestly opposed any farther interven- 
tion in Sicilian afi"airs ; but the counsels of Alcibiades prevailed, 
and in the summer of 415 B. C, the largest armament that had ever 
left a Grecian port sailed on the most distant enterprizc that Athens 
had ever undertaken, under the command of three generals, Nj^' ias, 
Lam' achus, and Alcibiades ; but the latter was recalled soon after 
the fleet had reached Cat' ana/ on the eastern coast of the island. 



1. Selinus was a flourishing city of more than thirty thousand inhabitants, on the southern 
shore of the western part of the island. Its ruins may still be seen near what is called Torre 
di Polluce. Eges' ta, called by the Romans Segesta, was on the northern coast, near the 
modern Mcamo. Selinus and Eges' ta were engaged in almost continual wars with each other. 
After the Athenian expedition the Egestans called to their assistance the Carthaginians, who 
look, plundered, and nearly destroj-ed Selinus; but Egos' ta, under Carthaginian rule, expe- 
rienced a fite but little better. {Map No. VIII.) 

2. Cat' ana, now Catania was at the southern base of Rlount JEV na, thirty-two miles north 
from Syracuse, The distance from the city to the summit of the mountain was thirty miles. 
Catania has been repeatedly destroyed by earthquakes, and by torrents of liquid fire from the 
ncighbormg volcano ; but it has risen like the fabled phoenix, more splendid from its ashea, 



120 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

20. From Cat' ana Nic'ias sailed around the northern coast to 
Eges' ta, whence he marched the land forces back through the island 
to Cat' ana, having achieved nothing but the acquisition of a few in- 
significant towns, while the Syracusans improved the time in making 
preparations to receive the invaders. At length, about the last of 
October, Nic' ias sailed with his whole force to Syracuse — defeated 
the Syracusans in the battle which followed — and then went into 
winter quarters at Nax' os ; but in the spring he returned to his 
former station at Cat' ana, soon after which he commenced a regular 
siege of Syracuse. 

21. In a battle which was fought on the grounds south of the city, 
towards the river Anapus, Lam' achus was slain, although the Athe- 
nians were victorious. Nic' ias continued to push forward his suc- 
cesses, and Syracuse was on the point of surrendering, when the ar- 
rival of the Spartan general G-ylip'pus at once changed the fortune 
of war, and the Athenians were soon shut up in their own lines. 

22. At the solicitation of Nic' ias a large re enforcement, commanded 
by the Athenian general Demosthenes, was sent to his assistance in 
the spring of 413; but at the same time the Sparta«is reenforced 
Gylip' pus, and, in addition, sent out a force to ravage At'tica. 
During the summer many battles, both on land and in the harbor of 
Syracuse, were fought by the opposing forces, in nearly all of which 
the Syracusans and their allies were victorious ; and, in the end, the 
entire Athenian force in Sicily, numbering at the time not less than 
forty thousand men, was destroyed. " Never in Grrecian history," 
says Thuc^^d' ides, " had ruin so complete and sweeping, or victory 
so glorious and unexpected, been witnessed." 

23. Soon after the termination of the contest between the Athe- 
nians and Syracusans, the Carthaginians again sought an opportunity 
of invading the island, and established themselves over its entire 
western half; but they were ably resisted by Dionysius the Elder, 
" tyrant of Syracuse," who was proclaimed chief of the republic 
about 405 B. C. ; and it was owing to his exertions that any part 
of the island was saved from falling into the hands of the enemy. 
It was at length agreed that the river Him' era' should form the 
limit between the Grecian territories on the east and the Carthagi- 

and is still a beautiful city. The streets are paved with lava ; and bouses, palaces, churches, 
and convents, are built of it. Remains of ancient temples, aqueducts, baths, &c., are numer- 
ous. The environs are fruitful, and well cultivated. {Map No. VIII.) 

1. The river Him' era here mentioned, now the Salso, falls into the Mediterranean on the 
Eouthern coast, to the west of Gela. (Map No. VIII.) 



Chap. IV.] GRECIAN COLONIES. 121 

nian dependencies on the west ; but the peace was soon broken by 
the Carthaginians, who, amid the civil dissensions of the Greeks, 
sought eyerj opportunity of extending their dominion over the entire 
island. 

24. Subsequently the aspiring power of Carthage was cheeked by 
Timoleou, and afterwards by Ag^th' ocles. The former, a Corinthian 
by birth, having made himself master of the almost deserted Syra- 
cuse, about the year 340 B. C, restored it to some degree of its 
former glory. He defeated the Carthaginians in a great battle, and 
established the affairs of government on so firm a basis that the 
whole of Sicily continued, many years after his death, in unusual 
quiet and prosperity. Agath' ocles usurped the sovereignty of Syra- 
cuse by the murder of several thousand of its principal citizens in 
the year 317 B. C. He maintained his power twenty-eight years. 
Having been defeated by the Carthaginians, and being besieged in 
Syracuse, with a portion of his army he passed over to Africa, where 
he sustained himself during four years. In the year 306 he con- 
cluded a peace with the Carthaginians. He died by poison, 289 B. C, 
leaving his influence in Sicily and southern Italy to his son-in-law, 
the famous Pyr' rhus, king of Epirus. After the death of Agath'- 
ocles, the Carthagmians gained a decided ascendancy in Sicity, when 
the Romans, alarmed by the movements of so powerful a neighbor, 
and being invited over to the assistance of a portion of the people 
of Messana, commenced the first Punic war, (265 B. C.,) and after a 
struggle of twenty-four years made themselves masters of the whole 
of Sicily, — nearly a hundred years before the reduction of Greece 
itself to a Roman province. 

25. On the northern coast of Africa, within the district of the 
modern Barca, the important Grecian colony of Cyrenaica^ was 
planted by Lacedsemonian settlers from Thera," an jy 
island of the iE'gseD, about the year 630 B. C. Its cyrena'ica. 
chief city, Cyrene, was about ten miles from the sea, having a 
sheltered port called Apollunia, itself a considerable town. Over 
the Libyan tribes between the borders of Egypt and the Great 
Desert, the Cyreneans exercised an ascendancy similar to that which 
Carthage possessed over the tribes farther westward. About the 
year 550 B. C, one of the neighboring Libyan kings, finding the 
Greeks rapidly encroaching upon his territories, declared himself 

1. Cyrendica, see p. 70. 

2. Thera^ now Santorivi, belonged to the clustei called the Sporades. (Map No. 111.) 



122 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

subject to Egypt, when a large Egyptian army marched to his assist- 
ance, but the Egyptians experienced so complete a defeat that few 
of them ever retui'ned to their own country. We find that the next 
Egyptian king, Amasis, married a Cyrenean. 

26. Soon after the defeat of the Egyptians, the tyranny of the 
Cyrenean king, Agesilaus, led to a revolt among his subjects, who, 
being joined by some of the neighboring tribes, founded the city of 
Bar'ca, about seventy miles to the westward of Cyrene. In the 
war which followed, a great battle was fought with the allies of Bar' ca, 
in which Agesilaus was defeated, and seven thousand of his men were 
left dead on the field. The successor of Agesilaus was deposed from 
the kingly ofiice by the people, who, in imitation of the Athenians, 
then established a republican government, (543 B. C.,) under the di- 
rection of Demonax, a wise legislator of Mantinea. But the son of 
the deposed monarch, having obtained assistance from the people of 
Samos, regained the throne of Cyrene, about the time that the Per- 
sian prince Camby' ses conquered Egypt. Both the Cyrenean and 
the Barcan prince sent their submission to the great conqueror. Soon 
after this event the Persian satrap of Egypt sent a large force against 
Bar' ca, which was taken by perfidy, and great numbers of the in- 
habitants were carried away into Persian slavery. 

27. At a later period, Cyrene and Bar' ca fell under the power of 
the Carthaginians : they subsequently formed a dependency of Egypt ; 
and in the year 76 B. C, they were reduced to the condition of a 
Roman province. Cyrene was the birth-place of the poet Callim'- 
achus ; of Eratos' thenes the geographer, astronomer, and mathema- 
tician ; and of Carneades the sophist. Cyrenean Jews were present 
at Jerusalem on the day of pentecost : it was Simon, a Cyrenean 
Jew, whom the soldiers compelled to bear the Saviour's cross ; and 
Christian Jews of Cyrene were among the first preachers of Chris- 
tianity to the Greeks of Antioch. (Matthew, xxvii. 32 : Mark, xv. 
21 : Acts, ii. 10: vi. 9: xi. 20.) 



Chap. VJ ROMAN HISTORY. 123 



' CHAPTER y. 

ROMAN HISTORY: 

FROM THE FOUNDING OF ROME, 753 B. C, TO THE CONQUESTS OF GREECE AND 
CARTHAGE, 146 B. C. = 607 YEARS. 

SECTION I. 

EARLY ITALY: ROME UNDER THE KINGS : ENDING 510 B. C. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Italy — names and extent of,— 2. Mountains, and fertile plains. — 3. Climate. — 
4. Principal States and tribes. — 5. Our earliest information of Italy. E;ruscan civilization. 
[The Etruscans. The Tiber.]— 6. Southern Italy and Sicily colonized by Greeks. The rise of 
Rome, between the Etruscans on the one side and the Greeks on the other. — 7. Sources and 
character of early Roman history. — 8. The Roman legends, down to the founding of Alba. — 
[Lavin'iura Latium. Alba.] — 9. The Roman legends continued, down to the saving of 
Rom' ulus and Remus. — 10. To the death of Amu' lius. — 11. Auguries for selecting the site and 
name of a city. — 12. The Founding of Rome. [Description of Ancient and Modern Rome.]— 
13. Stratagem of Romulus to procure wives for his followers. [Sabines.] — 14. War with the 
Sabines. Treachery and fate of Tarp6ia. — 15. Reconciliation and union of the Sabines and 
Romans. Death of Tullius. [Laurent ines.] — 16. The intervening period, to the death of 
Rom' ulus. Death of Rom' ulus. 

17. Rule of the senators. Election of Numa, the 2d king. His institutions, and death. 
[Janus.] — 18. Reign of Tul' hus Hostil'ius, the 3d king, and first dawn of historic truth. — 
19. Legend of the Iloratii and Guriatii.— 20. Tragic death of Horatia. Submission, treachery, 
and removal of the Albans. Death of Tul' lius.— 21. The reign of An' cus Mar' tius, the 4th 
king. [Ostia.]— 22. Tarquin the Elder, the 5th king. His origin. Unauimously called to 
the throne. [Tarquin' ii.]— 23. His wars. His public works. His death.— 24. Ser' viua 
Tul' lius, the 6th king. Legends concerning him. Wars, &c.— 25. Division of the people 
into centuries. Federal union with the Latins. Administration of Justice, &c.— 26. Displeas- 
ure of the patricians, and murder of Servius.— 27. The reign of Tarquin the proud, the 7th 
king. His reign disturbed by dreams and prodigies.— 28. The dispute between Sextus, his 
brothers, and Collaiinus. How settled. [Ardea CoUatia.]— 29. The story of Lucretia, and 
banishment of tlie Tarquins. 

1. Italy, known in ancient times by the names TlesjJeria, Atisonia, 
Satur' nia, and (Enotria^ comprises the whole of the central penin- 
sula of southern Europe, extending from the Alps in a i. italv. 
southern direction nearly seven hundred and seventy miles, with a 
breadth varying from about three hundred and eighty miles in north- 
ern Italy, to less than eighty near its centre. 

2. The mountains of Italy are the Alps on its nortli-western bound- 
ary, and the Apennines, which latter pass through the peninsula nearly 
in its centre, and send off numerous branches on both sides. They 
are much less rugged than the Alps, and abound in rich forests and 



124 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

pasture land. But though for the most part mountainous, Italy has 
Bome plains of considerable extent and extraordinary fertility. Of 
these the most extensive, and the richest, is that of Lombardy in the 
north, watered by the river Po and its numerous branches, embrac- 
ing an area of about two hundred and fifty miles in length, with a 
breadth varying from fifty to one hundred and twenty miles, and now 
containing a vast number of cities. The next great plain stretches 
along the western coast of central Italy about two hundred miles, 
from the river Arno in Tuscany, to Terracina, sixty miles south-east 
from Rome. Although this plain was once celebrated for its fertilit}^, 
and was highly cultivated and populous, it is now comparatively a 
desert, a consequence of the prevalence of malaria^ which infects 
these districts to such an extent as to render them at certain portions 
of the year all but uninhabitable. The third great plain (the Apn- 
lian) lies along the eastern coast, towards the southern extremity of 
the peninsula, and includes the territory occupied by the ancient 
Daimians Peucetians, and Messapians. A great portion of this plain 
has a sandy and thirsty soil, and is occupied mostly as pasture land 
in winter. The plain of Naples^ on the western coast, is highly fer- 
tile, and densely peopled. 

3. The climate of Italy is in general delightful, the excessive 
heats of summer being moderated by the influence of the mountains 
and the surrounding seas, while the cold of winter is hardly ever 
extreme. In the Neapolitan provinces, which lie in the latitude of 
central and southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, snow is rare, and 
the finest fruits are found in the valleys throughout the winter. At 
the very southern extremity of Italy, which is in the latitude of 
Richmond, Virginia, the thermometer never falls to the freezing 
point. From a variety of circumstances it appears that the climate 
of Italy has undergone a considerable change, and that the winters 
are now less cold than formerly ; although probably the summer- 
heat was much the same in ancient times as at present. 

4. The principal States of ancient Italy were Cisal'pine Gaul, 
Etrnria, Um'bria, Picenum, Latium, Campania, Sam'nium, Apulia, 
Calabria, Lucania, and Brutiorum A'ger, — the situation of which, 
together with the names of the principal tribes that inhabited them, 
may be learned from the map of Ancient Italy accompanying this 
volume. (See Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

5. The earliest reliable information that we possess of Italy rep- 
resents the country in the possession of numerous independent tribes, 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 125 

many of which, especially those in the southern part of the peninsula, 
were, like the early Grecians, of Pelas' gic origin. Of these tribes, the 
Etrurians or Etrus' cans,^ inhabiting the western coasts above the 
Tiber,'' were the most important ; as it appears that, before the 
founding of Rome, they had attained to a considerable degree of 
power and civilization ; and two centuries after that event they were 
masters of the commerce of the western Mediterranean. Many 
works of art attributed to them still exist, in the walls of cities, in 
vast dikes to reclaim lands from the sea, and in subterranean tunnels 
cut through the sides of hills to let off the lakes which had formed in 
the craters of extinct volcanoes. 

6. It appears that during the height of Etrus' can power in Italy, 
the southern portions of the peninsula, together with Sicily, first 
began to be colonized by Grecians, who formed settlements at Cdmae 
and Neap' olis, as early as the tenth or eleventh century before the 
Christian era, and at Taren' tum, Crotona, Nax' os, and Syracuse, 
in the latter part of the eighth century ; and such eventually be- 
came the number of the Grecian colonies that all southern Italy, 
in connection with Sicily, received the name of Magna Grecia. (See 
p. 115.) But while the old Etrnrian civilization remained nearly 
stationary, fettered, as in ancient Egypt, by the sway of a sacerdotal 
caste, whose privileges descended by inheritance, — and while the 
Greek colonies were dividing and weakening their power by allowing 
to every city an independent sovereignty of its own, there arose on 
the western coast, between the Etrus' cans on the one side and the 
Greeks on the other, the small commonwealth of Rome, whose power 
ere long eclipsed that of all its rivals, and whose dominion was des- 
tined, eventually, to overshadow the world. 

I. The Etrurians^ or Etrus' cans, were the inhabitants of Etruria, a celebrated country of 
Italy, lying to the north and west of the Tiber. They were farther advanced in civilizalion 
than any of their European coteraporaries, except the Greeks, but their origin is involved in 
obscurity, and of their early history little is known, as their writings have long since perished, and 
their hieroglyphic inscriptions on brass are utterly unintelligible. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

'i. The river Tiber, called by the ancient Latins Albula, and by the Greeks Thijmbris, the 
most celebrated, though not the largest river of Italy, rises in the Tuscan Apennines, and has 
a general southerly course about one hundred and thiriy miles until it reaches Rome, when it 
turns south-west, and enters the Mediterranean by two mouths, seventeen miles from Rome, 
terminating in a marshy pestiferous tract. Its waters have a yellowish hue, being discolored 
by the mud with which they are loaded. Anciently the Tiber was capable of receiving vessels 
of considerable burden at Rome, and small boats to within a short distance of its source, but 
the entrance of the river from the sea, and its subsequent navigation, have become so difficult, 
that the harbor of Ostia at its mouth has long been relinquished, and Civita Vecchia is now 
the port of Rome, although at the distance of thirty-six miles north, with which it is connected 
merely by a road. {Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 



126 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

7. What historians have related of the founding of Rome, and of 
the first century, at least, of its existence, has been drawn from 
numerous traditionary legends, known, from their character, to be 
mostly fabulous, and has therefore no valid claims to authenticity. 
Still it is proper to relate, as an introduction to what is better known, 
the story most accredited by the Eomans themselves, and contained 
in their earliest writings, while at the same time we express the 
opinion that it has little or no foundation in truth. a 

8. The Roman legends state that, immediately after the fall of 
Troy, JEneas, a celebrated Trojan warrior, escaping from his devoted 
country, after seven years of wanderings arrived on the western coast 
of Italy, where he established a colony of his countrymen, and built 
the city of Lavin' ium.^ From Latinus, a king of the country, whom 
he had slain in battle, and whose subjects he incorporated with his 
own followers, the united people were called Lattni or Latins, and 
their country Ldtium^ After the lapse of thirty years, which were 
occupied mostly in wars with neighboring tribes, the Latins, now in- 
creased to thirty hamlets, removed their capital to Alba,^ a new city 
which they built on the Alban Moimt, and which continued to be the 
head of the confederate people during three centuries. 

9. The old Roman legends go on to state, that, at an uncertain 
date, Procas, king of Alba, left two sons at his death, and that 
Ndmitor the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Araulius the 
younger to wrest the government from him, to murder the only son, 
and to consecrate the daughter of his brother to the service of the 
temple, in the character of a vestal virgin. But the attempts of 
Amiilius to remove all claimants of the throne were fruitless, for 
Syl' via, the daughter of Ndmitor, became the mother of twin sons, 

1. Lavin' ium, a. city of Latuim, was about eighteen miles south of Rome. The modern 
village of Practica, about three miles from the coast, is supposed to occupy the site of the 
ancient city. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

2. Ancient Ldtium extended from the Tiber southward along tlie coast about fifty miles, to 
the Circaean promontory. It was afterwards extended farther south to the river Liris, and at a 
still later period to the Vulturnus. The early inhabitants of Latium were the Latins, (also a 
general term applied to all the inhabitants of Liitium,) Rutulians, Hernicians, and Volscians. 
(Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

3. Mba appears to have been about fifteen miles south-east from Rome, on the eastern shore 
of the Alban lake, and on the western declivity of the Alban Mount. The modern villa of 
Palazzuolo is supposed to mark the site of the ancient Alban city. (Map No. X,) 

a. "The Trojan legend is doubtless a home sprung fable, having not the least historical truth, 
nor even the slightest historical importance." — Niebuhr's Rom. Hist., i. p. 107. 

" Niebuhr has shown the early history of Rome to be unworthy of credit, and made it impos- 
sible for any one to revive the old belief." — Anthon's Clas. Did. ; articJc Rome. 



Chap. V.j ROMAN HISTORY. 127 

Rom' ulus and Remus, by Mars, the god of war. Amulius ordered 
that the mother and her babes should be drowned in the Tiber ; but 
while SyF via perished, the infants, placed in a cradle of rushes, float- 
ed to the shore, where thej were found by a she wolf, which carried 
them to her den, and nursed them as her own offspring. 

10. After awhile the children were discovered by the wife of a 
shepherd, who took them to her cottage on the Palatine hill, where 
they grew up with her twelve sons, — and being the stoutest and 
bravest of the shepherd lads, they became their leaders in every 
wild foray, and finally the heads of rival factions — the followers of 
Rom' ulus being called Quinctil' ii, and those of Remus Fabii. At 
length Remus having been seized and dragged to Alba as a robber, 
the secret of the royal parentage of the youths was made known to 
Rom' ulus, who armed a band of his comrades and rescued Remus 
from danger. The brothers then slew the king Am alius, and the 
people of Alba again became subject to Numitor. 

11. Rom' ulus and Remus next obtained permission from their 
grandfather to build a city for themselves and their followers on the 
banks of the Tiber ; but as they disputed about the location and 
name of the city, each desiring to call it after his own name, they 
agreed to settle their disputes by auguries. Each took his station 
at midnight on his chosen hill, Rom' ulus on the Pal' atine, and 
Remus on the Av' entine, and there awaited the omens. Remus 
had the first augury, and saw six vultures flying from north to south ; 
but scarcely were the tidings brought to Rom' ulus when a flock of 
twelve vultures flew past the latter. Each claimed the victory, but 
the party of Rom' ulus, being the stronger, confirmed the authority 
of their leader. 

12. Rom' ulus then proceeded to mark out the limits of the city 
by cutting a furrow round the foot of the Pal' atine hill, which he 
inclosed, on the line thus drawn, with a wall and ditch, h. founding 
But scarcely had the walls begun to rise above the sur- of rome. 
face, when Remus, still resenting the wrong he had suffered, insult- 
ingly leaped over the puny rampart, and was immediately slain, 
either by Rom' ulus or one of his followers. His death was regard- 
ed as an omen that no one should cross the walls but to his destruc- 
tion. Soon the slight defences were completed, and a thousand rude 
huts marked the beginning of the " eternal city Rome,'" within whose 

1. See description of Rome page582anclMap. No. X. 



128 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

limits strangers from every land, exiles, and even criminals, and 
fugitives from justice, found an asylum. The date usually assigned 
for the founding of the city is the 753d year before the Christian era. 

13. But the Romans, as we must now call the dwellers on the 
Pal' atine, were without wives ; and the neighboring tribes scorn- 
fully declined intermarriages with this rude and dangerous horde. 
After peaceful measures had failed, Rom' ulus resorted to stratagem. 
He jDroclaimed a great festival ; and the neighboring people, es- 
jiecially the Lat' ins and Sabines,^ came in numbers, with their 
vrives and daughters, to witness the ceremonies ; but while they were 
intent on the spectacle, the Roman youths rushed in, and forcibly 
bore off the maidens, to become wives of the captors. 

14. War followed this outrage, and the forces of three Latin 
cities, which had taken up arms without concert, were successively 
defeated. At last the Sabine king, Titus Tatius, brought a power- 

iir WAR ^^^^ army against Rome, which Rom' ulus was unable to 
WITH THE resist in the open field, and he therefore retreated to 

SA BINES. ^Yie city, while he fortified and garrisoned the Capitoline 
liill, over against the Pal' atine on the north, intrusting the command 
of it to one of his most faithful officers. But Tarpeia, the daughter 
of the commander, dazzled by the golden bracelets of the Sabines, 
agreed to open a gate of the fortress to the enemy on condition that 
they should give her what they bore on their left arms — meaning 
their golden ornaments. Accordingly the gate was opened, but the 
traitress expiated her crimes by her death ; for the Sabines over- 
whelmed her with their shields as they entered, these also being 
carried on their left arms. To this day Roman peasants believe 
that in the heart of the Capitoline hill the fair Tarpeia is still sitting, 
bound by a spell, and covered with the gold and jewels of the Sa- 
bines. 

15. The Sabines next tried in vain to storm the city, and Rom'- 
ulus made equally fruitless attempts to recover the fortress which he 
had lost. While both parties thus maintained their positions, the 
Sabine women, now reconciled to their lot, and no longer wishing for 
revenge, but for a reconciliation between their j^arents and husbands, 
rushed in between the combatants, and by earnest supplications in- 

1. The territory of the Sdbines lay to the north-east of E.ome. At the time when its limits 
were most clearly defined it was separated from Latium on the south by the river Anio, from 
Elruria by the Tiber, from Umbria by the river Nar, and from Picenum on the east by the 
Apennines. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 



Chap, v.] ROMAN HISTORY. 129 

duced them to agree to a suspension of hostilities, which terminated 
in a treaty of peace. The Sabines and Romans were henceforth to 
form one nation, having a common religion, and E-om'Tllus and 
Tatius were to reigii jointly. Not long after, Tatius was slain by 
some Laurentines^ on the occasion of a national sacrifice at Lavin'- 
ium, and henceforward Rom' ulus ruled over both nations. 

16. At this point in Roman history, remarks Niebuhr, the old 
Roman legend, or poetic lay, is suspended until the death of Rom'- 
ulus ; while the intervening period has been filled by subsequent writers 
with accounts of Etrus' can wars, which find no place in the ancient 
legend, and which are probably wholly fictitious. Just before the 
death of Rom' ulus, who is said to have ruled thirty-seven years, the 
poetic lay is resumed. It relates that, while the king was reviewing 
his people, the sun withdrew his light, and Mars, descending in a 
whirlwind and tempest, bore away his perfected son in a fiery chariot 
to heaven, where he became a god, under the name of Quirinus,^ 
(B. C. 716.) 

17. The legend further relates that after the death of Rom' ulus, 
the chosen senators, or elders of the people, who were also called 
patres, ov fathers^ retained the sovereign power in their iv. numa. 
hands during a year ; but as the people demanded a king, it was 
finally agreed that the Romans should choose one from the Sabine 
part of the population. The election resulted in the choice of the 
wise and pious Numa Pompil' ius, who had married the daughter of 
Tatius. After Numa had assured himself by auguries that the 
gods approved of his election, his first care was to regulate the laws 
of landed property, by securing the hereditary possession of land to 
the greatest possible number of citizens, thereby establishing the 
most permanent basis of civil order. He then regulated the ser- 
vices of religion, pretending that he received the rituals of the law 
from the goddess Egeria : he also built the temple of Janus ;^ and 



1. The Laurcntines were the people o{ Lauren' turn, the chief city of LAtium. Lauren' turn 
was eighteen miles south from Rome, oa tlie coast, and near the spot now called Patemo, 
{Maps Nos. VHI. and X.) 

2. Janus was an ancient Italian deity, whose origin is traced back to India. He was repre- 
sented sometimes with two faces looking in opposite directions, and sometimes with four. He 
"was the god of the year, and also of the day, and liad charge of the gates of heaven through 

a. Niebuhr deals severely with those writers who, in attempting to deduce historic truth 
from this poetical fiction, have made the supposition that, instead of an eclipse, there was a 
tempest, and that the senators themselves tore Rom' ulus to pieces. (See Niebuhr, i. 127-y— 
also Schmitz' Rome, p. 20.) 

9 



130 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

after a quiet and prosperous reign of forty-two years he fell asleep 
full of days and peaceful honors. (673 B. C.) The legend adds 
that the goddess Egeria, through grief for his loss, melted away in 
tears into a fountain. 

18. The death of Niima was followed by another interregnum, 
after which the young and warlike TuUus Hostilius was chosen king. 
A gleam of historic truth falls upon his reign, and the v. tullus 
purely poetic age of Roman story here begins to disap- hostilius. 
pear in our confidence that such a king as Tullus Hostilius actually 
existed, and that during his reign the Albans became united with 
the Romans. Still, the story of the Alban war, and of subsequent 
wars during the life of Tullus, retain much of legendary fiction, des 
titute of historic certainty. 

19. A tradition of the Alban war, preserved by the early poets, 
relates, that when the armies of Rome and Alba were drawn up 
against each other, their leaders agreed to avert the battle by a 
combat between three twin brothers on the one side, and three on 
the other, whose mothers happened to be sisters, although belonging 
to different nations. The Roman brothers were called Horatii, and 
the Albans Curiatii. Meeting in deadly encounter between the two 
armies, two of the Horatii fell, but the third, still unwounded, re- 
sorted to stratagem, and, pretending to flee, was followed at unequal 
distances by the wounded Curiatii, when, suddenly turning back, he 
overcame them in succession. 

20. A mournful tragedy followed. At the gate of the city the 
victor was met by his sister Horatia, who, having been affiarced to 
one of the Curiatii, and now seeing her brother exultingly bearing 
off the spoils of the slain, and, among the rest, the embroidered 
cloak of her betrothed, which she herself had woven, gave way to a 
burst of grief and lamentation, which so incensed her brother that 
he slew her on the spot. For this act he was condemned to death, 
but was pardoned by the interference of the people, although they 
ordered a monument to be raised on the spot where Horatia fell. 
By the terms of an agreement made before the combat the Albans 
were to submit to the Romans ; but not long after this event they 
showed evidence of treachery, when, by order of Tullus, their city 



which the suii passes ; and hence all gates and doors on earth were sacred to him. January, 
the first month in the religious year of the Romans, was named after him. PI is temples at 
Rome were numerous, and in time of war the gates of the principal one were open, but in 
time of peace they were closetl to keep wars within. 



Chap V.J ROMAN HISTORY. 131 

was levelled to the ground, and the people were removed to the 
Cselian hill, adjoining the Pal' atine on the east. After a reign of 
thirty-two years, Tullus and all his family are said to have been 
killed by lightning. (642 B. C.) 

21. We find the name of Ancus Martins, said to have been a 
grandson of Numa, next on the list of Roman kings. He is rep- 
resented both as a warrior, and a restorer of the ordi- yj ^ncus 
nances and rituals of the ceremonial law, which had fallen martius. 
into disuse during the reign of his predecessor. He subdued many 
of the Latin towns — founded the town and port of Ostia^ — built the 
first bridge over the Tiber — and established that principle of the 
Roman common law, that the State is the original proprietor of all 
lands in the commonwealth. The middle of his reign is said to have 
been the era of the legal constitution of the plebeian order, and the 
assignment of lands to this body out of the conquered territories. 
He is said to have reigned twenty-four years. 

22. The fourth king of Rome was Tarquinius Prisons, or Tarquin 
the Elder. The accounts of his reign are obscure and conflicting. 
By some his parents are said to have fled from Corinth to Tarquin' ii,^ 
a town of Etruria, where Tarquin was born : by others yu^ tarquin 
he is said to have been of Etruscan descent ; but Niebuhr the elder. 
believes him to have been of Latin origin. Having taken up his 
residence at Rome at the suggestion of his wife Tanaquil, who was 
celebrated for her skill in auguries, he there became distinguished 
for his courage, and the splendor in which he lived ; and his liber- 
ality and wisdom so gained him the favor of the people that, when 
the throne became vacant, he was called to it by the unanimous 
voice of the senate and citizens. (617 B. C.) 

23. Tarquin is said to have carried on successful wars against the 
Etrus' cans, Latins, and Sabines, and to have reduced all those people 
under the Roman dominion ; but his reign is chiefly memorable on 
account of the public works which he commenced for the security 
and improvement of the city. Among these were the embanking of 

1, Os' tia, the early port and harbor of Rome, once a place of great wealth, populatio^j, and 
importance, was situated on the east side of the Tiber, near its mouth, fifteen miles from 
Rome. Oa'tia, which still retains its ancient Jiame, is now a miserable village of scarcely a 
hundred inhabitants, and is almost uninhabitable, from Malaria ; the fever which it engenders 
carrying off annually nearly all whom necessity confines to this pestilential region during the 
hot season. The harbor of Os' tia is now merely a shallow pool. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

2. Tarquin' ii, one of the most powerful cities of Etruria, was about forty miles north-west 
from Rome, on the left bank of the river Marta, several miles from its mouth. The ruins of 
Turchina mark the site of the ancient city. {Mips Nos. VIII. and X.) 



132 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I 

the Tiber ; the sewers, which yet remain, for draining the marshes 
and lakes in the vicinity of the capital ; the porticos around the 
market-place, the race-course of the circus, and the foundations of the 
city walls, which were of hewn stone. It is said that Tarquin, after 
a reign of thirty-eight years, was assassinated at the instigation of 
the sons of Ancus Martins, who feared that he would secure the suc- 
cession to his son-in-law Servius Tullius, his own favorite, and the 
darling of the Roman people. (579 B. C.) 

24. Notwithstanding the efforts of the sons of Ancus Martius, the 
senate and the people decided that Servius should rule over them. 
The birth of this man is said, in the old legends, to have vm. servius 
been very humble, and his infancy to have been attended tullius. 
with marvellous omens, which foretold his future greatness. Of his 
supposed wars with the revolted Etrus' cans nothing certain is known ; 
but his renown as a law-giver rests on more substantial grounds than 
his military fame. 

25. The first great political act of his reign was the institution of 
the census, and the division of the people into one hundred and ninety- 
three centuries^ whose rights of suffrage and military duties were 
regulated on the basis of property qualifications. The several Latin 
communities that had hitherto been allied with the Romans by treaty 
he now incorporated with them by a federal imion ; and to render 
that union more firm and lasting, he induced the confederates to 
unite in erecting a temple on Mount Aventine to the goddess Diana, 
and there unitedly to celebrate her worship. He also made wise 
regulations for the impartial administration of justice, prohibited 
bondage for debt, and relieved the people from the oppressions with 
which they already began to be harassed by the higher orders. 

2G. His legislation was received with displeasure by the patricians ; 
and when it was known that Servius thought of resigning the crown, and 
establishing a consular form of government, which would have rendered 
a change of his laws difiicult, a conspiracy was formed for securing 
the throne to Tarquinius, surnamed the Proud, a son of the former 
king, who had married a daughter of Servius. The old king Servius 
was murdered by the agents of Tarquin, and his body left exposed 
in the street, while his wicked daughter Tullia, in her haste to con- 
gratulate her husband on his success, drove her chariot over her 
father's corpse, so that her garments were stained with his blood. 
(535 B. C.) 

27. The reign of Tarquinius Superbus, or the Proud, was distiu- 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 133 

guished by a series of tyrannical usurpations, which made his name 
odious to all classes; for although he at first gratified his supporters 
by diminishing the privileges of the plebeians, or the jx. tarquin 
common people, he soon made the patricians themselves ^'"'"^ proud. 
feel the weight of his tyranny. The laws of Servius were swept 
away — the equality of civil rights abolished — and even the ordinances 
of religion suffered to fall into neglect. But although Tarquin was 
a tyrant, he exalted the Roman name by his successful wars, and 
alliances with the surrounding nations. In the midst of his successes, 
however, he was disturbed by the most fearful dreams and appalling 
prodigies. He dreamed that the sun changed its course, rising in 
the west ; and that when the two rams were brought to him for sac- 
rifice, one of them pushed him down with its horns. At one time a 
serpent crawled from the altar and seized the flesh which he had 
brought for sacrifice : a flock of vultures attacked an eagle's nest in 
his garden, threw out the unfledged eaglets upon the ground and 
drove the old birds away ; and when he sent to Delphi to consult the 
oracle, the responses were dark and fearful. 

28. The reverses threatened were brought upon him by the wick- 
edness of Sextus, one of his sons. It is related that while the Ro- 
mans were besieging Ardea,^ a Rutulian city, Sextus, with his 
brothers Titus and Aruns, and their cousin Collatinus, happened to 
be disputing, over their wine, about the good qualities of their wives, 
when, to settle the dispute, they agreed to visit their homes by sur- 
prise, and, seeing with their own eyes how their wives were then em- 
ployed, thus decide which was the worthiest lady. So they hastily 
rode, first to Rome, where they found the wives of the three Tar- 
quins feasting and making merry. They then proceeded to Collatia,^ 
the residence of Collatinus, where, although it was then late at night, 
they found his wife Lucretia, with her maids around her, all busy 
working at the loom. On their return to the camp all agreed that 
Lucretia was the worthiest lady. 

29. But a spirit of wicked passion had seized upon Sextus, and a 
few days later he went alone to GoUatia, and being hospitably lodged 
in his kinsman's house, violated the honor of Lucretia. Thereupon 

1. Ardea, a city of Latium, and the capital of the Rutulians, was about twenty-four miles 
Bonth from Rome, and three miles from the sea. Some ruins of the ancient city are still visible, 
and bear the name of Ardea. (Maps Nos. VIII, and X.) 

2. CoUdtia^ a town of Latium, was near the south bank of the river Anlo, twelve or thirteen 
miles east from Rome. Its ruins may still be traced on a hill which has obtained the name of 
Castillacio. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 



134 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

she sent in haste for her father, and husband, and other relatives, 
and having told* them of the wicked deed of Sextus, and made them 
swear that they would avenge it, she drew a knife from her bosom 
and stabbed herself to the heart. The vow was renewed over the 
dead body, and Lucius Junius Brutus, who had long concealed patri- 
otic resolutions under the mask of pretended stupidity, and thus 
saved his life from the jealousy of Tarquin, exhibited the corpse to 
the people, whom he influenced, by his eloquence, to pronounce sen- 
tence of banishment against Tarquin and his family, and to declare 
that the dignity of king should be abolished forever. (510 B. C.) 



SECTION II. 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, FROM THE ABOLITION OF ROYALTY, 510 B.C., 

TO THE BEGINNING OF THE "WARS WITH CARTHAGE: 

263 B. C. == 247 YEARS. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Royalty abolished. The laws of Servius reestablished. Consuls elected. — 
2. Aristocratic character of the government. The struggle between the patricians and ple- 
beians begins. — 3. Extent of Roman territory . — 4. Conspiracy in f;ivor of the Tarquins. Etrus- 
can WAR. — 5. Conflicting accounts. Legend of the Etrus' can war. [Ciusium.] — 6. The story 
of Mutius Scaev'ola. — 7. Farther account of the Roman legend. The probable truth. — 8. Hu- 
miliating condition of the plebeians after the Etrus can war. — 9. Continued contentions. The 
office of Dictator. — 10. Circumstances of the first Plebeian Insurrection. [Volscians.] — 11. 
Confusion. IVithdrawal of the Plebeians. [Mons Sacer.]— 12. The terras of reconciliation. 
Office and power of the Tribunes. — 13. League with the Latins and Hernicians. — 14. Vol- 
sciAN AND ^QuiAN WARS. Contradictory statements. [iEquians. Corioli.] Proposal of 
Coriolanus. — 15. His trial — exile — and war against the Romans. — 16. The story of Cincinatus. — 
17. The public lands — and the fate of Spurius Cassius. — 18. Continued demands of the people. 
Election and office of the Decem'virs. — 19. The laws of the decern' virs.— 20. The decem- 
virs are continued in office — their additional laws — and tyranny. — 21. The story of Virginia. — 
22. Overthrow of the decem' virs, and death of Appius. — 23. Plebeian innovations. The office 
of Censors. — 24. Rome, as viewed by the surrounding people. Circumstances that led to the 
WAR with Veil [Situation of Veil.]— 25. Destruction of Veii, and extension of Roman 
territory. 

26. Gallic Invasion. Circumstances of the introduction of the Gauls into Italy. [Cisalpine 
Gaul.]— 27 The Roman ambassadors. Conduct of Brennus.— 28. The Romans defeated by the 
Gauls. General abandonm.ent of Rome. [The Allia. Roman Forum.]— 29. Entrance of the 
Gauls into the city. Massacre of the Senators. Rome plundered and burned.— 30 Vain at- 
tempts to storm the citadel. The Roman legend of the expulsion of the Gauls. The more 
probable account. [The Venetians.]— 31. The rebuilding of Rome.— 32. Renewal of the Ple- 
beian AND Patrician contests. Philanthro])y and subsequent history of Manlius.— 33. Con- 
tinued oppression of the plebeians.— 34. Great reforms made by Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sex- 
tus. The office of Pr;etor.— 35. Progress of the Roman power. The Samnite confederacy. 
[The Samniles.]— 36. First Samnite war. [Cap' ua.] League with the Samnites. Latin 
war.— 37 Second Samnite war.— Defeat of the Romans, and renewed alliance. [Caudino 



I. CONSULS. 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 135 

Forks.] — 38. The senate declares the treaty void. Magnanimity of Pontius. — 39. The third 
Samnite war. Fate of Pontius. [Umbria.]— 40. War with the Tarentines and Pyr'- 
RHUS. — 41. First encounter of Pyr'rhus with the Romans. — 42. Pyr' rhus attempts negotiation. 
His second battle. — 43. Story of the generosity of Fabricius, and magnanimity of Pyr'rhuc. 
Pyr' rhus passes over to Sicily — returns, and renews the war— is defeated — and abandons Italy. 
Roman supremacy over all Italy. [Rubicon. Arnus. Tuscan Sea.]— 44. Alliance with Egypt. 
Sicilian affairs. Widening circle of Roman history. 

1. As narrated at the close of the previous section, royalty was 
abolished at Rome, after an existence of two hundred and forty 
years. The whole Roman people took an oath that whoever should 
express a wish to rule as king should be declared an outlaw. The 
laws of Servius were reestablished, and, according to the 
code which he had proposed, the royal power was in- 
trusted to two consuls,* annually elected. The first chosen were 
Butus and Collatinus. 

2. From the expulsion of the Tarquins, and the downfall of mon- 
archy, is dated the commencement of what is called the Roman 
Repiiblic. Yet the government was at this time entirely aristo- 
cratical ; for all political power was in the hands of the nobility, 
from whom the consuls were chosen, and there was no third party 
to hold the balance of power between them and the people. Hence 
arose a struggle between these two divisions of the body politic ; 
and it was not until the balance was properly adjusted by the in- 
creased privileges of the plebeians, and a more equal distribution of 
power, that the commonwealth attained that strength and influence 
which preeminently exalted Rome above the surrounding nations. 

3. The territory possessed by Rome under the last of the kings 
is known, from a treaty made with Carthage in the first year of the 
Republic, to have extended at least seventy miles along the coast 
south of the Tiber. Yet all this sea-coast was destined to be lost 
to Rome by civil dissensions and bad government, before her power 
was to be firmly established there. 

a. The consuls had at first nearly the same power as the kings ; and all other magistrates 
were subject to them, except the tribunes of the people. They summoned the meetings of the 
senate and of the assemblies of the people— they had the chief direction of the foreign aflfairs 
of the government— they levied soldiers, appointed most of the military officers, and, in time 
of war, had supreme command of the armies. In dangerous conjunctures they were armed 
with absolute power by a decree of the senate that "they should take care that the republic 
receives no harm." Their badges of office were the toga prmtezta, or mantle bordered with 
purple, and an ivory sceptre ; and when they appeared in public they were accompanied by 
twelve officers called lictors, each of whom carried a bundle of rods, (fas'ces,) with an axe 
(seciiris) placed in the middle of them ;— the former denoting the power of scourging, or of 
ordinary punishment,— and the latter, the power of life and death. 



136 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

4. The efforts of Tarquin to recover the throne gave rise to a con- 
spiracy among some of the younger patricians who had shared in 
the tyrant's extortions. Among the conspirators were the sons of 
Brutus ; and the duty of pronouncing their fate devolved upon the 
consul their father, who, laying aside parental affection, and acting 
the part of the magistrate only, condemned them to death. The 
II. ETRus' CAN cause of the Tarquins was also espoused by the Etrus'- 

WAR- cans, to whom they had fled for protection, and thus a war 
was kindled between the two people. 

5. The accounts of the events and results of this war are exceed- 
ingly conflicting. The ancient Roman legend relates that when 
Porsenna, king of Clusium,^ the most powerful of the Etrus'can 
princes, led an overwhelming force against Rome, the Romans were 
at first repulsed, and fled across a wooden bridge over the Tiber ; 
and that the army was saved by the valor of Horatius Codes, who 
alone defended the pass against thousands of the enemy, until the 
bridge was broken down in the rear, when he plunged into the stream, 
and, amid a shower of darts, safely regained the opposite shore. 

6. It is farther related, that when Porsenna had reduced Rome 
to extremities by famine, a young man, Mutius Scaev' ola, undertook, 
with the approbation of the Senate, to assassinate the invading king. 
Making his way into the Etrus' can camp, he slew one of the king's 
attendants, whom he mistook for Porsenna. Being disarmed, and 
threatened with torture, he scornfully thrust his right hand into the 
flame, where he held it until it was consumed, to show that the rack 
had no terrors for him. The king, admiring such heroism, gave him 
his life and liberty, when Scaev' ola warned him, as a token of grati- 
tude, to make peace, for that three hundred young patricians, as brave 
as himself, had conspired to destroy him, and that he, Scaev' ola, had 
only been chosen by lot to make the first attempt. 

7. The Roman legend asserts that Porsenna, alarmed for his life, 
offered terms of peace, which were agreed upon. And yet it is known, 
from other evidence, that the Romans, about this time, surrendered 
their city, and became tributary to the Etrus' cans ; and it is prob- 
able that when, soon after, Porsenna was defeated in a war with the 
Latins, the Romans embraced the opportunity to regain their inde- 
pendence. 

8. It was only while the attempts of the Tarquins to regain the 

1. Clusium, now Chiusi, was a town of Etruria, situated on the western bank of the river 
Clanis, a tributary of the Tiber, about eighty-five miles north-west from Rome. (Map No. VIIT.) 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 137 

throne excited alarm, and the Etrus' can war continued, that the gov- 
ernment under the j&rst consuls was administered with justice and 
moderation. When these dangers were over, the patricians again 
began to exert their tyranny over the plebeians, and as nearly all 
the wealth of the State had been engrossed by the former, the latter 
were reduced to a condition differing little from the most abject 
slavery. A decree against a plebeian debtor made not only him, 
but his children also, slaves to the creditor, who might imprison, 
scourge, or otherwise maltreat them. 

9. The contentions between the patricians and plebeians were at 
length carried to such an extent, that in time of war the latter re- 
fused to enlist ; and as the consuls, for some cause now unknown, 
could not be confided in, the plebeians were induced to consent to 
the creation of a dictator^ who, during six months, had m, office of 
supreme power, not only over patricians, plebeians, and wctatoe. 
consuls, but also over the laws themselves. Under a former law of 
Valerius the people had the right of appeal from a sentence of the 
consul to a general assembly of the citizens ; but from the decision 
of the dictator there was no appeal, and as he was appointed by the 
Senate, this office gave additional power to the patrician order-^^ 

10. During a number of years dictators continued to be appointed 
in times of great public danger ; but they gave only a temporary 
calm to the popular dissensions. It was during a war with the Vol- 
scians^ and Sabines that the long-accumulating resentment of the 
plebeians against the patricians first broke forth in open iv, plebeian 
insurrection. An old man, haggard and in rags, pale insurrection. 
and famishing, escaping from his creditor's prison, and bearing the 
marks of cruel treatment, implored the aid of the people. A crowd 
gathered around him. He showed them the scars that he had re- 
ceived in war, and he was recognized as a brave captain who had 
fought for his country in eight and twenty battles. His house and 
farm-yard having been plundered bythe enemy in the Etrus' can war, 

1. The Volscians were the most southern of the tribes that inhabited Latium. Their terri- 
tory, extending along the coast southward from Antium about fifty miles, swarmed with citi^ 
.<llled with a hardy and warlike race, {Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

a. The oflSce of dictator had existed at Alba and other Latin towns long before this time. 
The authority of all the other magistrates, except that of the tribunes, (see p. 138,; ceased as 
soon as the dictator was appointed. He had the power of life and death, except per- 
haps in the case of knights and senators, and from his decision there was no appeal ; but for 
any abuse of his power he might be called to account after his resignation or the expiration of 
his term of office. At first the dictator was taken from the patrician ranks only ; but about the 
year 356 B. C. it was opened by C. Marcius to the plebeians also. See Niebuhr's Rome, i. 270. 



138 AI^GIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

famine had first compelled him to sell his all, and then to borrow ; 
and when he could not pay, his creditors had obtained judgment 
against him and his two sons, and had put them in chains. (495 
B. C.) 

11. Confusion and uproar spread through the city. All who had 
been pledged for debt were clamorous for relief ; the people spurned 
the summons to enlist in the legions ; compulsion was impossible, 
and the Senate knew not how to act. At length the promises of the 
consuls appeased the tumult ; but finally the plebeians, after having 
been repeatedly deceived, deserted their officers in the very midst 
of war, and marched in a body to Mons Sacer,^ or the Sacred Mount, 
within three miles of Rome, where they were joined by a vast mul- 
titude of their discontented brethren. (493 B. C.) 

12. After much negotiation, a reconciliation was finally effected 
on the terms that all contracts of insolvent debtors should be can- 
celled ; that those who had incurred slavery for debt should recover 
their freedom ; that the Valerian law should be enforced, and that 
two annual magistrates, (afterwards increased to five,) called trib- 

V. TRIBUNES ^^^6^,^ whose persons were to be inviolable, should be 

OF THE chosen by the people to watch over their rights, and pre- 

PEOPLE. ^^^^^ ^^^ abuses of authority. It will be seen that the 

power of the tribunes, so humble in its origin, eventually acquired a 

preponderating influence in the State, and laid the foundation of 

monarchical supremacy.^ 

13. During the same year that the office of the tribunes was 
created, a perpetual league was made with the Latins, (493 B. C.) 
and seven years later with the Hernicians, who inhabited the north- 
eastern parts of Latium, both on terms of perfect equality in the 
contracting parties, and not, as before, on the basis of Roman supe- 

1. The Mons Sacer, or " Sacred Mountain," is a low range of sandstone hills extending 
along the right bank of the Anio, near its confluence with the Tiber, about three miles from 
Rome. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

a> The tribunes of the people wore no external marks of distinction; but an officer called 
arator attended them, to clear the way and summon people. Their chief power at first con- 
sisted in preventing, or arresting, by the word veto, " I forbid," any measure which they 
thought detrimental to the interests of the people. 

b. After the plebeians had withdrawn to the " Sacred Mount," the Senate despatched an 
embassy of ten men, headed by Menenius Agrippa, to treat with the insurgents. Agrippa is 
said, on this occasion, to have related to the people the since well-known fable of the Belly and 
the Members. The latter, provoked at seeing all the fruits of their toil and care applied to 
the use of the belly, refused to perform any more labor ; in consequence of which the whole 
body was in danger of perishing. The people understood the moral of the fable, and were 
ready to enter upon a negotiation. 



Chap. YI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 139 

riority. These leagues made with cities that were once subject to 
the Romans, show that the Roman power had been greatly dimin- 
ished by the plebeian and aristocratic contentions in the early years 
of the Republic. 

14. In the interval between these treaties, occurred important 
wars with the Volscians and jEquians.^ The historical ^j volscian 
contradictions of this period are so numerous, that little and ^qui- 
reliance can be placed on the details of these wars ; but 

it is evident that the Yolscians and ^quians were defeated, and that 
Caius Marcius, a Roman nobleman, acquired the surname of Coriola- 
nus from his bravery at the capture of the Volscian town of Corioli^ 
and that Lucius Quinctius, called Cincinnatus, acquired great dis- 
tinction by his conduct of the war against the iEquians. Coriolanus 
belonged to the patrician order, and was an enemy of the tribunes ; 
and it is related that when, during a famine, a Sicilian prince sent a 
large supply of corn to relieve the distresses of the citizens, Coriola- 
nus proposed in the Senate that the plebeians should not share in 
the subsidy until they had surrendered the privileges which they had 
acquired by their recent secession. 

15. The rage of the plebeians was excited by this proposition, and 
they would have proceeded to violence against Coriolanus, had not 
the tribunes summoned him to trial before the assembly of the peo- 
ple. The senators made the greatest efforts to save him, but the 
commons condemned him to exile. Enraged by this treatment, he 
went over to the Yolscians — was appointed a general in their armies 
— and, after defeating the Romans in several engagements, laid siege 
to the city, which must have surrendered had not a deputation of 
Roman matrons, headed by the wife and the mother of Coriolanus, 
prevailed upon him to grant his countrymen terms of peace. It is 
said that on his return to the Volscians he lost his life in a popular 
tumult ; but a tradition relates that he lived to a very advanced age, 
and that he was often heard to exclaim, " Hovv^ miserable is the con- 
dition of an old man in banishment." 

16. It is related that during the war with the ^quians the enemy 
had surrounded the Roman consul in a defile, where there was neither 
forage for the horses nor food for the men. In this extremity, the 

1. The ^quians dwelt principally in the upper valley of the Anio, north of that stream, and 
between the Sabines and the Marsi. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

2. Corioli is supposed to have been about twenty-two or twenty-three miles south-east from 
Rome. A hill now known by the name of Monte Oiove, is thought, with some degree of prob- 
ability, to represent the site of this ancient Volscian city. {Map No. X.) 



1 40 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

Senate and people chose Cincinnatus dictator, and sending in haste 
to inform him of his election, the deputies found him at work in his 
field, dressed in the plain habit of a Roman farmer. After he had 
put on his toga, or cloak, that he might receive the message of the 
Senate in a becoming manner, he was saluted as dictator, and con- 
ducted into the city. He soon raised an army, surrounded the enemy, 
and took their whole force prisoners, and at the end of sixteen days, 
having accomplished the deliverance of his country, resigned his 
power, and returned to the peaceful pursuits of private life.^ 

17. The first acquisitions of territory made by the Romans appear 
to have been divided among the people at large ; but of late the con- 
quered lands had been suffered to pass, by connivance, occupation, or 
purchase, chiefly into the hands of the patricians. The complaints 
of the plebeians on this subject at length induced one of the consuls, 
Spurius Cassius, to propose a division of recently-conquered lands 
into small estates, for the poorer classes, who, he maintained, were 
justly entitled to their proportionate share, as their valor and labors 
had helped to acquire them. But while this proposition alarmed 
the Senate and patricians with danger to their property, the motives 
of Cassius appear to have been distrusted by all classes, for he was 
charged with aiming at kingly power, and, being convicted, was ig- 
nominiously beheaded, and his house razed to the ground. (458 B. C.) 

18. Still the people continued to demand a share in the conquered 
lands, now forming the estates of the wealthy, and, as the only way 
of evading the difficulty, the Senate kept the nation almost constantly 
involved in war. During thirty years succeeding the death of Cas- 
sius, the history of the Republic is occupied with desultory wars 
waged against the jS]quians and Volscians, and with continued strug- 
gles between the patricians and plebeians. At length the tribunes 
succeeded in getting their number increased from five to ten, when 
the Senate, despairing of being able to divert the people any longer 
from their purpose, consented to the appointment of ten persons, 

VII. THE hence called decern virs, who were to compile a body of 
DECEMVIRS, laws for the commonwealth, and to exercise all the pow- 
ers of government until the laws should be completed. (451 B. C.) 

19. After several months' deliberation, this body produced a code 



a. It should be remarked here, that the story of Cincinnatus formed the subject of a beauti- 
ful poem, to the substance of which most writers have given the credit of historical authen- 
ticity, although Niebuhr has shown that the truth of the legend will not stand the test of 
criticism. (See Niebuhr, vol. ii. pp. 125-6. and Arnold's Rome, i. pp. 131-5, and notes.) 



Chap, v.] ROMAN HISTORY. 141 

of laws, engraven on ten tables, which continued, down to the time 
of the emperors, to be the basis of the civil and penal jurisprudence 
of the Roman people, though almost concealed from view under the 
enormous mass of additions piled upon it. The new constitution 
aimed at establishing the legal equality of all the citizens, and there 
was a show of dividing the great offices of State efjually between patri- 
cians and plebeians, but the exact character of the ten tables cannot 
now be satisfactorily distinguished from two others that were sub- 
sequently enacted. 

20. After the task of the decemvirs had been completed, all classes 
united in continuing their office for another year ; and an equal num- 
ber of patricians and plebeians was elected ; but the former appear 
to have sought seats in the government for the purpose of overthrow- 
ing the constitution. The decemvirs now threw off the mask, and 
enacted two additional tables of laws, by which the plebeians were 
greatly oppressed, for, among the laws attributed to the tivelve tables, 
we find that although all classes were liable to imprisonment for 
debt, yet the pledging of the person affected plebeians only, — that the 
latter were excluded from the enjoyment of the public lands, — that 
their intermarriage with patricians was prohibited, — and that consuls 
could be elected from the patrician order only. Moreover, the de- 
cemvirs now refused to lay down the powers of government which 
had been temporarily granted them, and, secretly supported by the 
patricians, ruled without control, thus establishing a tyrannical oli- 
garchy. 

21. At length a private injury accomplished what wrongs of a 
more public nature had failed to effect. Appius Claudius, a leading 
decemvir, had fallen in love with the beautiful Virginia, daughter of 
Yirginius, a patrician officer ; but finding her betrothed to another, in 
order to accomplish his purpose he procured a base dependant to 
claim her as his slave. As had been concerted, Virginia was brought 
before the tribunal of Appius himself, who, by an iniquitous decision, 
ordered her to be surrendered to the claimant. It was then that the 
distracted father, having no other means of preserving his daughter's 
honor, stabbed her to the heart in the presence of the court and the 
assembled people. (448 B. C.) 

22. A general indignation against the decemvirs spread through the 
city ; the army took part with the people ; the power of the decem- 
virs was overthrown ; and the ancient forms of government were re- 
stored : while additional rights were conceded to the commons, by 



142 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

giving to their votes, in certain cases, the authority of law. Appius, 
having been impeached, died in prison, probably by his own hand, 
before the day appointed for his trial. 

23. Other plebeian innovations followed. After a difficult strug- 
gle the marriage law was repealed, (B. C. 445,) and two years later 
military tribunes, with consular powers, were chosen from the ple- 
beian ranks. One important duty of the consuls had been the taking 
of the census once in every five years, and a new distribution of the 
people, at such times, among the different classes or ranks, according 
to their property, character, and families. But the patricians, un- 
willing that this power should devolve upon the plebeians, stipulated 
that these duties of the consular office should be disjoined from the 
military tribuneship, and conferred upon two new officers of patrician 

VIII. OFFICE birth, who were denominated censors ;^ and thus the 
OF CENSORS, long- continued efforts of the people to obtain, from their 

own number, the election of officers with full consular powers, were 

defeated. 

24. But while dissensions continued to mark the domestic councils 
of the Romans with the appearance of divided strength and wasted 
energies, the state of affairs presented a different aspect to the sur- 
rounding people. They saw in Borne only a nation of warriors that 
had already recovered the strength it had lost by a revolutionary 
change of government, and that was now marching on to increased 
dominion without any signs of weakness in the foreign wars it had to 
maintain. Veii,^ the wealthiest and most important of the Etruscan 
cities, had long been a check to the progress of the Romans north of 
the Tiber, and had often sought occasion to provoke hostilities with 

IX. WAR t^G young republic. At length the chief of the people 
WITH VEIL of Veil put to death the Roman ambassadors ; and the 
Roman Senate, being refused satisfaction for the outrage, formally 
resolved that Yeii should be destroyed. 

25. The Etruscan armies that marched to the relief of Veii were 

1. Veii^ mimcrous remains of which still exist, was about twelve miles north from Rome, at 
a place now known by the name oiVInsola Farnesc. {Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 

a. An important duly of the censors was that of inspecting the morals of the people. Thoy 
had the power of inflicting various marks of disgrace upon those who deserved it, — such as ex- 
cluding a senator from the senate-house — depriving a knight of his public horse if he did not 
take proper care of it; — and of punishing, in various ways, those who did not cultivate their 
grounds properly — those who lived too long unmaiTied — and those who were of dissolute mor- 
als. They had charge, also, of the public works, and of letting out the public lands. The 
oflSce of censor was esteemed highly honorable. In allusion to the severity with which Cato 
the Elder discharged its duties, he is commonly styled, at the present day, " Calo the Censor." 



Chaf. v.] ROMAN HISTORY. 143 

repeatedly defeated by the Roman legions, and the people of Yeii 
were finally compelled to shut themselves up in their city, which was 
taken by the Roman dictator, Camillus, after a blockade and siege 
of nearly ten years. (396 B. C.) The spoil taken from the con- 
quered city was given to the army, the captives were sold for the 
benefit of the State, and the ornaments and images of the gods were 
transferred to Rome. The conquerors also wreaked their vengeance 
on the towns which had aided Veil in the war, and the Roman territory 
was extended farther north of the Tiber than at any previous period. 

26. But while the Romans were enjoying the imaginary security 
which these successful wars had given them, they were suddenly as- 
sailed by a new enemy, which threatened the extinction of the Ro- 
man name. During the recent Etruscan wars, a vast horde of barba- 
rians of the Gallic or Celtic race had crossed the Alps x. gallic 
from the unknown regions of the north, and had sat down invasion. 
in the plains of Northern Italy, in the country known as Cisalpine 
Gaul.^ Tradition relates that an injured citizen of Clusium, an 
Etruscan city, went over the mountains to these Gauls, taking with 
him a quantity of the fruits and wines of Italy, and promised these 
rude people that if they would leave their own inhospitable country 
and follow him, the land which produced all these good things 
should be theirs, for it was inhabited by an unwarlike race ; where- 
upon the whole Gallic people, with their women and children, crossed 
the Alps, and marched direct to Clusium. (391 B. C.) 

27. Certain it is that the people of Clusium sought aid from the Ro- 
mans, who sent three of the nobility to remonstrate with the Brennus, 
or chieftain of the Gauls, but as the latter treated them with derision, 
they forgot their sacred character as ambassadors, and joined the 
Clusians in a sally against the besiegers. Immediately Brennus 
ordered a retreat, that he might not be guilty of shedding the blood 
of ambassadors, and forthv/ith demanded satisfaction of the Roman 
senate ; and when this was refused he broke up his camp before 
Clusium and took up his march for Rome at the head of seventy 
thousand of his people. 

28. Eleven miles from the city, on the banks of the AV ia,^ a battle 

1. Cisal2>lne Qaal^ meaning "Gaul this side ofthe Alps," to distinguish it fi-oni "Caul be- 
yond the Alps," embraced all that portion of Northern Italy that was watered by the river Po 
and its numerous tributaries, extending south on the Adriatic coast to the river Rubicon, and 
on the Tuscan coast to the river Macra. {Map No. IX.) 

2. The AV ia, now the Aia, was a small stream that flowed into the Tiber from the cast, 
about ten miles uorlh-east from Rome. (Jl/a/j No. X.^ 



144 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

was fought, and the Romans, forty thousand in number, were defeat- 
ed. (390 B. C.) Brennus meditated a sudden march to Rome to con- 
summate his victory, but his troops, abandoning themselves to pillage, 
rioting, and drunkenness, refused to obey the voice of their leader, 
and thus, the attack being delayed, the existence of the Roman na- 
tion was saved. The defeat on the AV ia had rendered it impossible 
to defend the city, but a thousand armed Romans took possession of 
the capitol and the citadel, and laying in a store of provisions deter- 
mined to maintain their post to the last extremity, while the mass of 
the population sought refuge in the neighboring towns, bearing with 
them their riches, and the principal objects of their religious venera- 
tion. But while the rest of the people quitted their homes, eighty 
priests and patricians of the highest rank, deeming it intolerable to 
survive the republic and the worship of the gods, sat down in the 
Forum, ^ in their festal robes, awaiting death. 

29. Onward came the Gauls in battle array, with horns and 
trumpets blowing, but finding the walls deserted, they burst open the 
gates and entered the city, which they found desolate and death-like. 
They marched cautiously on till they came to the Forum, where, in 
solemn stillness, sat the aged priests, and chiefs of the senate, look- 
ing like beings of another world. The wild barbarians, seized with 
awe at such a spectacle, doubted whether the gods had not come 
down to save the city or to avenge it. At length a G-aul went up to 
one of the priests and gently stroked his white beard, but the old man 
indignantly repelled the insolence by a stroke of his ivory sceptre. 
He was cut down on the spot, and his death was the signal of a 
general massacre. Then the plundering commenced : fires broke out 
in several quarters ; and in a few days the whole city, with the ex- 
ception of a few houses on the Pal' atine, was burnt to the ground.^- 
(390 B. C.) 

30. The Grauls made repeated attempts to storm the citadel, but 
in vain. They attempted to climb up the rocks in the night, but 
the cackling of the sacred geese in the temple of Juno awoke Mar- 
cus Man'lius, who hurled the foremost Gaul headlong down the 

1. The Roman Forum was a large open space between the Capitoline and Pal' atine hills, sur- 
rounded by porticos, shops, &c., where assemblies of the people were generally held, justice 
administered, and public business transacted. It is now a mere open space strewed for the 
most part with ruins, which, in the course of centuries, have accumulated to such an extent as 
to raise the surface from fifteen to twenty feet above its ancient level. See p. 582. 

a. Different writers have given the date of the taking of Rome by the Gauls, from 388 to 
398 B. C. 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 145 

precipice, and prevented the ascent of those who were mounting after 
him. At length famine began to be felt by the garrison. But the 
host of the besiegers was gradually melting away by sickness and 
want, and Brennus agreed, for a thousand pounds of gold, to quit 
Rome and its territory. According to the old Roman legend, Ca- 
mir lus entered the city with an army while the gold was being 
weighed, and rudely accosting Brennus, and saying, " It is the custom 
of us Romans to ransom our country, not with gold, but with iron," 
ordered the gold to be carried back to the temple, whereupon a bat- 
tle ensued, and the Gauls were driven from the city. A more jDroba- 
ble account, however, relates that the Gauls were suddenly called 
home to protect their own country from an invasion of the Venetians.^ 
According to Polybius this great Gallic invasion took place in the 
same year that the " peace of Antalcidas" was concluded between 
the Greeks and Persians. (See p. 89.) 

31. The walls and houses of Rome had now to be built anew, and 
so great did the task appear that the citizens clamored for a removal 
to Veii ; but the persuasion of Camil' lus, and a lucky omen, in- 
duced them to remain in their ancient situation. Yet they were not 
allowed to rebuild their dwellings in peace, for the surrounding na- 
tions, the Sabines only excepted, made war upon them ; but their 
attacks were repelled, and one after another they were made to yield 
to the sway of Rome, which ultimately became the sovereign city of 
Italy. 

32. Soon after the rebuilding of the city the old contests between 
the patricians and plebeians were renewed, with all their former vio- 
lence. The cruelties exercised towards helpless credit- xr. plebeian 
ors appear to have aroused the sympathies of the patrician '^!!?>j^c^^^' 
Man' lius, the brave defender of the capitol, for he sold tests. 
the most valuable part of his inheritance, and declared that so long 
as a single pound remained no Roman should be carried into bondage 
for debt. Henceforward he was regarded as the patron of the poor, 
but for some hasty words was thrown into prison for slandering the 
government, and for sedition. Released by the clamors of the mul- 
titude, he was afterwards accused of aspiring to kingly authority ; 
and the more common account states that he was convicted of treason, 
and sentenced to be thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rook, the 
scene of his former glory. But another account states that, being 

1. The Venetians were a people of ancient Italy who dwelt north of the mouths of the Po, 
around the head-waters of the Adriatic. {Map No. VIII.) 

10 



116 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

in insurrection, and in possession of the capitol, a treacherous slave 
hurled him down the precipice.^ (384 B. C.) 

33. The plebeians mourned the fate of Man' lius, but his death 
was a patrician triumph. The oppression of the plebeians now in- 
creased, until universal distress prevailed : debtors were every day 
consigned to slavery, and dragged to private dungeons ; the number 
of free citizens was visibly decreasing ; those who remained were re- 
duced to a state of dependence by their debts, and Home was on the 
point of degenerating into a miserable oligarchy, when her decline 
was arrested by the appearance of two men who changed the fate 
of their country and of the world. 

34. The authors of the great reform in the constitution were Li- 
cinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius. Confining themselves strictly to 
the paths permitted by the laws, they succeeded, after a struggle of 
live years against every species of fraud and violence, in obtaining 
for the plebeians an acknowledgment of their rights, and all possible 
guarantees for their preservation. (376 to 371 B. C.) The history 
of the struggle would be too long for insertion here. As on a former 
occasion, it was only in the last extremity, when the people had 
taken up arms, and gathered together upon the Aventine, that the 
patrician senate yielded its sanction to the three bills brought forward 
by Licinius. The first abolished the military tribuneship, and gained 
for the plebeians a share in the consulship : the second regulated the 
shares, divisions, and rents, of the public lands : the third regulated 
the rate of interest, gave present relief to unfortunate debtors, and 
secured personal freedom against the rapacity of creditors. To save 

XII. OFFICE something from the general wreck of their power, the 
OF PR.ETOR. patricians stipulated that the judicial fanctions of the 
consul should be exercised by a new officer with the title of Frcetor^ 
chosen from the patrician order ; yet within thirty -five years after 
the passage of the laws of Licinius, not only the prsetorshlp, but the 
dictatorship also, was opened to the plebeians. 

35. The legislation of Licinius freed Home from internal dissen- 
sions, and gave new development to her strength and warlike ener- 

1. 'Y\\Q -orators were judicial magistrates, — officers answering to the modern chief-justice or 
chancellor. The modern English forms of judicial proceedings in the trial of causes are mostly 
taken from those observed by the Roman pnctors. At first but one praetor was chosen ; after- 
wards, Y/hen foreigners became numerous at Rome, another prastor was added to administer 
justice to them, or between them and the citizens. In later times subordinate judges, called 
I'ro\incial pnvtors, were appointed to administer justice in the provinces. 

a. Sec Nicbuhr, i. 275. 



Chap. Y.J ROMAN HISTORY. H7 

gies. Occasionally the Gauls came down from the north and made 
inroads upon the Roman territories, but they were invariably driven 
back with loss ; while the Etrus' cans, almost constantly at war with 
Rome, grew less and less formidable, from repeated defeats. On the 
south, however, a new and dangerous enemy appeared in the Sam- 
nite^ confederacy, now in the fulness of its strength, and in extent 
of territory and population far superior to Rome and her allies. 

36. Cap' ua,'' a wealthy city of Campania, having obtained from 
Rome the promise of protection against the Samnites, ^^^^ ^^^^ 
the latter haughtily engaged in the war, and with a larger samnite 
army than Rome could muster invaded the territory of ^^"^^^ 
Campania, but in two desperate battles were defeated by the Ro- 
mans. Two years later the Samnites proffered terms of peace, 
which were accepted. (341 B. C) A league with the Samnites ap- 
pears to have broken the connection that had long existed between 
Rome and Latium, and although the latter was willing to submit to 
a common government, and a complete union as one nation, yet the 
Romans, rejecting all compromise, haughtily determined either that 
their city must be a Latin town, or the Latins be subject to Rome. 
The result of the Latin war was the annexation of all Latium, and 
of Campania also, to the territory of the Republic. (338 B. C.) 

37. The Samnites were alarmed at these successes, and Roman 
encroachments soon involved the two people in another war. The 
Samnites lost several battles, but under their able general Pontius 
they effectually humbled the pride of Rome. The armies of the 
two Roman consuls, amounting to twenty thousand men, ^^^ second 
while passing through a narrow defile call the Caudine samnite 
Forks, ^ were surrounded by the enemy, and in this situa- 
tion, unable either to fight or to retreat, were obliged to surrender. 
(321 B. G.) The terms of Pontius v»^ere that the Roman soldiers 
should be allowed to return to their homes, after passing under the 

1. The Sanmites dwelt at the distance of about ninety miles south-east from Rome, their 
territory lying between Apulia on the east and Campania and Latium on the west. {Maps 
Nos. VIII. and X.) 

'J. Cap' .la, the capital of Campania, was about three miles from the left bank of the river 
Vultur' nus, (now Vulturno,) about one hundred and five miles south-east from Rome. The 
remains of its ancient amphitheatre, said to have been capable of containing one hundred 
thousand spectators, and some of its tombs, &c., attest its ancient splendor and magnificence. 
Two and a half miles from the site of the ancient city, is tlie modern city of Cap' ua, on the 
left bank of the Vulturno. (Map No. VIII.) 

3. The Caudine Forks were a narrow pass in the Samnile territory, about thirty-five milea 
north-east from the Cap' ua. The present valley of .^rpaia, (or Forcbia di Arpaia,) not far from 
Benevcnto, is thought to answer to this pass. 



us ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet 1 

yoke ; that there should be a renewal of the ancient equal alliance 
between Rome and Samnium, and a restoration of all places that 
had been dependent upon Samnium before the war. For the fulfil- 
ment of these stipulations the consuls gave their oaths in the name 
of the republic, and Pontius retained six hundred Roman knights as 



38. But notwithstanding the recent disaster, and the hard fate 
that might be anticipated for the hostages, the Roman senate imme- 
diately declared the peace null and void, and decreed that those who 
had sworn to it should be given up to the Samnites, as persons who 
had deceived them. In vain did Pontius demand either that the 
whole army should be again placed in his power, or that the 'terms 
of capitulation should be strictly fulfilled ; but he showed magna- 
nimity of soul in refusing to accept the consuls and other officers 
whom the Romans would have given up to his vengeance. Not long 
after, the six hundred hostages were restored, but on what conditions 
is unknown. 

39. The war, being again renewed, was continued with brief inter- 
vals of truce, during a period of thirty years ; and although the Sam- 

v^ rpxiTOT. iiites were at times aided by Umbrians,^ Etrus'cans, 
sAMNiTE and Gauls, the desperate valor of the Romans repeatedly 
AVAR. triumphed over all opposition. The last great battle, 
which occurred fifty-one years from the commencement of the first 
Samnite war, and which decided the contest between Rome and 
Samnium, has no name in histor}^, and the place where it was 
fought is unknown, but its importance is gathered from the common 
statement that twenty thousand Samnites were left dead on the field 
and four thousand taken prisoners, and that among the latter was 
Pontius himself (B. C. 292.) He was led in chains to grace the 
triumph of the Roman general, but the senate tarnished its honor 
by ordering the old man to execution. (291 B. C.) One year after 
the defeat of Pontius, the Samnites submitted to the terms dictated 
by the conquerors. (290 B. C.) 

40. The Samnite wars had made the Romans acquainted with the 
Grecian cities on the eastern coast, and it was not long before they 

XVI. AVAR ^^^"^^^ a pretext for -war with Taren' tum, the wealthiest 

WITH THE of the Greek towns of Italy. The Tarentines, abandoned 

TARENTiNEs. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ luxury, had often employed mercenary Gre- 

1. Um' bria, the territory of the Umbrians, was east of Etriiria, on the left bank of the Tiber, 
and north of the Sabine terrilory. {J\Iaps Nos. VIH. and X.) 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 149 

ciaii troops in their wars with the rude tribes bj which they were 
surrounded, and now, when pressed by the Romans, they again had 
recourse to foreign aid, and applied for protection to Pyr' rhus, king 
of Epirus, who has previously been brought under our notice in con- 
nection with events in Grecian history. (See p. 106.) 

41. Pyr'rhus, ambitious of military fame, accepted the invitation 
of the Tarentines, and passed over to Taren' tum at the head of an 
army of nearly thirty thousand men, having among his forces twenty 
elephants, the first of those animals that had been seen in Italy. In 
the first battle, which was fought with the consul Laevinus, seven 
times was Pyr'rhus beaten back, and to his elephants he was finally 
indebted for his victory. (280 B. C.) The valor and military skill 
of the Romans astonished Pyr' rhus, who had expected to encounter 
only a horde of barbarians. As he passed over the field of battle 
after the fight, and marked the bodies of the Romans who had fallen 
in their ranks without turning their backs, and observed their counte- 
nances, stern even in death, he is said to have exclaimed in admira- 
tion : " With what ease I could conquer the world had I the Ro- 
mans for soldiers, or had they me for their king." 

42. Pyr' rhus now tried the arts of negotiation, and for this pur- 
pose sent to Rome his friend Cineas, the orator, who is said to have 
won more towns by his eloquence than Pyr' rhus by his arms ; but 
all his proposals of peace were rejected, and Cineas returned filled 
with admiration of the Romans, whose city he said, was a temple, 
and their senate an assembly of kings. The war was renewed, and 
in a second battle Pyr', rhus gained a dearly-bought victory, for he 
left the flower of his troops on the field. " One more such victory," 
he replied to those who congratulated him, " and I am undone." 
(279 B. C.) 

43. It is related that while the armies were facing each other the 
third time, a letter was brought to Fabricius, the Roman consul and 
commander, from the physician of Pyr' rhus, ofiering, for a suitable 
reward, to poison the king, and that Fabricius thereupon nobly in- 
formed Pyr' rhus of the treachery that was plotted against him. 
When the message was brought to Pyr' rhus, he was astonished at 
the generosity of his enemy, and exclaimed, " It would be easier 
to turn the sun from his course than Fabricius from the path of 
honor." Not to be outdone in magnanimity he released all his 
prisoners without ransom, and soon after, withdrawing his forces, 
passed over into Sicily, where his aid had been requested by the 



150 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

Greek cities against the Cartliaginians. (276 B. C. Seep. 121.) Re- 
turning to Italy after an absence of three years, he renewed hostili- 
ties with the Romans, but was defeated in a great battle by the consul 
Curius Dentatus, after which he left Italy with precipitation, and 
sought to renew his broken fortunes in the Grecian wars. The de- 
parture of Pyr' rhus was soon followed by the fall of Taren' turn, 
and the establishment of Roman supremacy over all Italy, from the 
Rubicon' and the Arnus,^ on the northern frontier of Umbria and 
Etruria, to the Sicilian straits, and from the Tuscan^ sea to the 
Adriat' ic. 

44. Sovereigns of all Italy, the Romans now began to extend their 
influence abroad. Two years after the defeat of Pyr' rhus, Ptol' emy 
Philadelphus, king of Egypt, sought the friendship and alliance of 
Rome by embassy, and the Roman senate honored the proposal by 
sending ambassadors in return, with rich presents, to Alexandria. 
An interference with the affairs of Sicily, soon after, brought on a 
war with Carthage, at this time a powerful republic, superior in 
strength and resources to the Roman. From this 23eriod the Roman 
annals begin to embrace the histories of surrounding nations, and 
the circle rapidly enlarges until all the then known world is drawn 
within the vortex of Roman ambition. 



SECTION III 



THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CARTHAGINIAN WARS, 

263 B. 0, TO THE REDUCTION OF GREECE ANI> CARTHAGE TO THE 

CONDITION OF ROMAN PROVINCES: 146 B. C. = 117 YEARS. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Geographical account of Carthage. [Tunis.]— 2. African dominions of 
Carthage. Foreign possessions. Trade. [Sardinia. Corsica. Balearic Isles. Malta.] — 3. 
Circumstances of Roman interference in the aflFairs of Sicily. — 4. Commencement of the First 
Punic War. The Carthaginians driven from Sici)}^ The Romans take Agrigenlum. — 5. The 
Carthaginians ravage Italy. Building of the lirst Roman fleet. First naval encounter with the 

1. The Rubicon, v/hich formed in part the boundary between Italy proper and Cisalpine 
Gaul, is a small stream which falls into the Adriat' ic, eighteen or twenty miles south of Rav- 
enna. (Jlap No. VIII.) 

2. The river ^Irnus (now tlie Amu) was the boundary of Etruria on the north until the time 
of Augustus. On both its banks stood Florentia, the modern Florence ; and eight miles from 
its mouth, on its right bank, stood Piste, the modern Pisa. {Map No. VIII.) 

3. The Tuscan Sea was that part of the Mediterranean which extended along the coast of 
Etruria, or Tuscany. (Map No. VIIT.) 



Chap, v.] ROMAN HISTORY. 151 

Carthaginians.— 6. Roman design of carrying the war into Africa. Second defeat of the Car- 
thaginians. — 7. Regulus invades the Carthaginian territory. His first successes, and final de- 
feat. [Herrnsean promontory. Clypea.] — 8. Roman disasters on the sea. Reduction of tlie 
Roman fleet. Roman victory in Sicily. — 9. Regulus is sent to Rome with proposals of peace. 
His return to Carthage, and subsequent fate. — 10. Subsequent events of the war. Conditions 
of the peace, and extension of the Roman dominion. 

11. General peace. Circumstances that led to the Illyr'ian War. [lUyr'ians.] — 12. Re- 
sults of the war. Gratitude of the Greeks. Wab with the Gauls. [Clastidium.]— 13. Ham'- 
ilcar's designs upon Spain. His enmity to the Romans. [Spain.] — 14. Progress of the Cartha- 
ginians in Spain. Hannibal's conquests there. Roman embassy to Carthage. [Saguntum. 
Iberus. Catalonia.] 

15. Opening of the Second Punic War. Plans of the opposing generals. Hannibal's march 
to Italy. Battles on the Ticinus and the Trebia. [Gaul. Marseilles. Turin. Ticiuus. Nu- 
raidia. R. Po. Trebia.]— 16. Battles of Trasimenus and Cannae. [Trasimenus. Canna;.]— 17. 
Defection from the cause of Rome. Courage, and renewed efforts, of the Romans. — 18. Hanni- 
bal at Capua. Successful tactics of Fabius Maxiinus. Hasdrubal. Fall of Syracuse. [Jletaurus. 
Archimedes.]— 19. Scipio carries the war into Africa. His successes. Recall of Hannibal, 
from Italy. [Utica.] — 20. Confidence of the Carthaginians in Haimibal. Battle of Zama. The 
terms of peace. Triumph of Scipio. [Zama.] 

21. The distresses which the war had brought upon the Romans. Their unconquerable 
spirit, and renewed prosperity. — 22. State of the world— favorable to the advancement of the 
Roman republic— 23. A Grecian War.— 24, Syrian War. Terms of the peace. Disposal of 
tlie conquered provinces. [Magnesi-a. Pergamus.]— 25. The fate of Hannibal and Scipio.— 2G. 
Reduction of Greece. The Third Punic War. Relations of the Carthaginians and Romans 
since the battle of Zama. — 27. Condition of Carthage. Roman armament. Demands of tlio 
Romans.— 28. The exasperated Carthaginians prepare for war.— 29. Events and results of the 
contest. Destruction of Carthage, 146 B. C. 



1. Cartilage, believed to have been founded by a Plioenician colony 
from Tyre in tlie ninth century before the Christian era, was situated 
on a peninsula of the northern coast of Africa, about 

twelve miles, according to Livy, north-east irom the 
modern city of Tunis, ^ but, according to some modern writers, 
only three or four miles. Probably the city extended over a great 
23art of the space between Tunis and Cape Carthage. Its harbor 
was southward from the city, and was entered from what is now the 
Gulf of Tunis. 

2. The Carthaginians early assumed and maintained a dominion 
over the surrounding Libyan tribes. Their territory was bounded 
on the east by the Grecian Cyrenaica ; their trading posts ex- 
tended westward along the coast to the pillars of Hercules ; and 
among their foreign possessions may be enumerated their depeii- 



1. Tunis is about four miles from the sea, and three miles south-west from the ruins of 
ancient Cartilage. Among these ruins have been discovered numerous reservoirs or large 
cisterns, and the remains of a grand aqueduct which brought water to the city from a distance 
of at least fifty miles. According to Strabo, Tunis, or Tunes, existed before the foundation of 
Carthage. The chief events in the history of Tunis are its numerous seiges and captures. 
(See pp.335-510. Map No. YHI.) 



152 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

dencies iu south-western Spain, in Sicily, and in Sardinia,^ Corsica,'' 
the Balearic Isles,^ and Malta.* It is believed that they carried on 
an extensive caravan trade with the African nations as far as the 
Niger ; and it is known that they entered into a commercial treaty 
with Rome in the latter part of the sixth century ; yet few details 
of their histoty are known to us previous to the beginning of the 
first Carthaginian war with Syracuse, about 480 B. C. 

3. At the time to which we have brought down the details of Ro- 
man history, the Mamertines, a band of Campanian mercenaries, 
who had been employed in Sicily by a former king, having estab- 
lished themselves in the island, and obtained possession of Messana, 
by fraud and injustice, quarrelled among themselves, one party seek- 
ing the protection of Carthage, and the other that of Rome. The 
Greek towns of Sicily were for the most part already in friendly al- 
liance with the Carthaginians, who had long been aiming at the com- 
plete possession of the island ; and the Romans did not hesitate to 
avail themselves of the most trifling pretexts to defeat the ambitious 
designs of their rivals. 

4. The first Punic ^ war commenced 263 years B. C, eight years 
n. FIRST after the surrender of Taren^ tum, when the Romans 

PUNIC WAR. lyiade a descent upon Sicily with a large army under the 

1. Sardinia is a hilly but fertile island of the Mediterranean, about one hundred and thirty 
miles south-west from the nearest Italian coast. At an early period the Carthaginians formed 
settlements there, but the shores of the island fell into the hands of the Romans in the interval 
between the first and second Punic wars, 237 B. C. The inhabitants of the interior bravely de- 
fended themselves, and were never completely subdued by the Roman arms. (Majt No. VIII.) 

2. Corsica lies directly north of Sardinia, from which it is separated by the strait of Bonifacio, 
ten miles in width in the narrowest part. Some Greeks from Phocis settled here at an early 
period, but were driven out by the Carthaginians. The Rouiaus took the island from the latter 
231 B. C. {Map No. VIII.) 

3. The Balearic Isles were those now known as Majorca and Minorca^ the former of which 
is one hundred and ten miles east from the coast of Spain. By some the ancient Ebusus, now 
Ivica^ is ranked among the Baleares. The term Balearic is derived from the Greek word 
Z»aZ/e/n, " to throw," — alluding to the remarkable skill of the inhabitants in using the sling. 
At an early date the Phoenicians formed settlements in the Baleares. They were succeeded by 
the Carthaginians, from whom the Romans, luider Q. Metellus, conquered these Islands 123 
B.C. {Map^o.lX.) 

4. Malta, whose ancient name was Melitn, is an island of the MeditBrranean, sixty miles 
south from Sicily. The Phoenicians early planted a colony here. It fell into the hands of the 
Carthaginians about four hundred years betbre the Christian era, and in the second Punic war 
it was conquered by the Romans, who made it an appendage of their province of Sicily. See 
also p. 469. (Map No. VIII.) 

a. The term Punic means simply "Carthaginian." It is a word of Greek origin, phoirtikesy 
in its sense of pin-ple, which the Greeks applied to Phoenicians and Carthaginians, in allusion 
to the famous purple or crimson of Tyre, the parent city of Carthage. The Romans, adapting 
the word to the analogy of the Latin tongue, changed it to Punicus, whence the English word 
Punic. 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 153 

command of the consul Claudius. After they had gained possession of 
Messana, in the second year of the war, Hiero, king of Syracuse, 
the second of the name, deserted his former allies and joined the 
Komans, and ere long the Carthaginians were driven from their most 
important stations in the island, although their superior naval power 
still enabled them to retain the command of the surrounding seas, 
and the possession of all the harbors in Sicily. The Carthaginians 
fortified Agrigentum, a place of great natural strength ; yet the Ro- 
mans besieged the city, which they took by storm, after defeating an 
immense army that had been sent to its relief. (262 B. C.) 

5. But while the Sicilian towns submitted to the Roman arms, a 
Carthaginian fleet of sixty ships ravaged the coast of Italy ; and the 
Romans saw the necessity of being able to meet the enemy on their 
own element. Unacquainted with the building of large ships, they 
must have been obliged to renounce their design had not a Cartha- 
ginian ship of war been thrown upon the Italian coast by a storm 
From the model thus furnished a hundred and thirty ships were 
built within sixty days after the trees had been felled. The Cartha- 
ginians ridiculed the awkwardness and clumsiness of their structure, 
and thought to destroy the whole fleet in a single encounter ; but the 
Roman commander, having invented an elevated draw-bridge, with 
grappling irons, for the purpose of close encounter and boarding, 
boldly attacked the enemy, and took or destroyed forty-five of the 
Carthaginian vessels in the first battle, while not a single Roman ship 
was lost. (260 B. C.) 

6. After the war had continued eight years with varied success, in- 
volving in its ravages not only Sicily, but Sardinia and Corsica also, 
a Roman armament of three hundred and thirty ships, intrusted to 
the command of the consuls Regulus and Manlius, was prepared for 
the great enterprise of carrying the war into Africa. But the Car- 
thaginians met these preparations with equal efi"orts, and under their 
two greatest commanders, Hanno and Hamil' car, went out to meet 
the enemy with three hundred and fifty ships, which carried no less 
than a hundred and fifty thousand men. In the engagement that 
followed, the rude force of the Romans, aided by their boarding 
bridges, overcame all the advantages of naval art and practice. 
Again the Carthaginians were defeated, — more than thirty of their 
ships being sunk, and sixty-four, with all their crews, taken. (256 
B C.) 

7. Regulus proceeded to Africa, and landing on the eastern coast 



tSl ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

of the Hermgean promontory^ took Clyp'ea' by storm, conquered 
Tunis, received the submission of seventy-four towns, and laid waste 
the country to the very gates of Carthage. An embassy sued for 
peace in the Koman camp ; but the terms offered by Eegulus were 
little better than destruction itself, and Carthage would probably 
have perished thus early, had not foreign aid unexpectedly come to 
her assistance. All of a sudden we find Xanthip' pus, a Spartan 
general, with a small body of G-recian troops, among the Carthagi- 
nians, promising them victory if they would give him the conduct of 
the war. A presentiment of deliverance pervaded the people, and 
Xanthip' pus, after having arranged and exercised the Carthaginian 
army before the city, went out to meet the greatly superior forces of 
the Romans, and gained a complete victory over them. (255 B. C.) 
Eegulus himself was taken prisoner, and, out of the whole Roman 
army, only two thousand escaped, and shut themselves up in Clyp'ea. 
Of Xanthip' pus nothing is knoTvna beyond the events connected with 
this Carthaginian victory. 

8. A Roman fleet, sent to bring off the garrison of Clyp' ea, gained 
a signal success over the Carthaginians near the Hermaean promon- 
tory, but on the return voyage, while off the southern coast of Sicily, 
was nearly destroyed by a tempest. Another fleet that had laid 
waste the Libyan coast experienced a similar fate on its return, — a 
hundred and fifty ships, and the whole booty, being swallowed up in 
the waves. The Romans were discouraged by these disasters, and 
for a time abandoned the sea to their enemies, the senate having at 
one time decreed that the fleet should not be restored, but limited 
to sixty ships for the defence of the Italian coast and the protection 
of transports. Still the war was continued on the land, and in Sicily 
the Roman consul Metellus gained a great victory over the Cartha- 
ginians near Panor' mus, killing twenty thousand of the enemy, and 
taking more than a hundred of their elephants. (250 B. C.) This 
was the last great battle of the first Punic war, although the contest 
was continued in Sicily, mostly by a series of slowly-conducted sieges, 
eight years longer. 

9. Soon after the defeat at Panor' mus, the Carthaginians sent an 
embassy to Rome with proposals of peace. Regulus was taken from 

1. The Hermaan promontory, or " promontory of Jlercury," is the same as the modern Cape 
Bon, usually called the northern cape of Africa, at a distance of about forty-five miles north- 
cast from the site of Carthage. (JSIap No. VIII.) 

2. Cl7jp' ea, now Aklib' ia, was situated on the peninsula which terminates in Cape Bon, a 
elrort distance south from the cape. (J\Iap No. VIII.) 



Chap. V.] . ROMAN HISTORY. . 155 

his dungeon to accompany the embassy, the Carthaginians trusting 
that, weary of his long captivity, he would urge the senate to accept 
the proffered terms ; but the inflexible Roman persuaded the senate 
to reject the proposal and continue the war, assuring his countrymen 
that the resources of Carthage were already nearly exhausted. 
Bound by his oath to return as a prisoner if peace were not con- 
cluded, he voluntarily went back to his dungeon. It is generally 
stated that after his return to Carthage he was tortured to death by 
the exasperated Carthaginians. But although his martyrdom has 
been sung by Roman poets, and his self-sacrifice extolled by orators, 
there are strong reasons for believing that he died a natural 
death.a- 

10. The subsequent events of the first Punic war, down to within 
a year of its termination, were generally unfortunate to the Romans; 
but eventually the Carthaginian admiral lost nearly his whole fleet 
in a naval battle. (241 B. C.) Again the Carthaginians, having 
exhausted the resources of their treasury, and unable to equip 
another fleet, sought peace, which was finally concluded on the con- 
ditions that Carthage should evacuate Sicily, and the small islands 
lying between it and Italy, pay three thousand two hundred talents 
of silver, and restore the Roman prisoners without ransom. (B. C. 
240.) Sicily now became, a Roman province ; Corsica and Sardinia 
were added two years later ; and the sway of Rome was extended 
over all the important islands which Carthage had possessed in the 
Mediterranean. 

1 1. Soon after the termination of the first Punic war, Rome found 
herself at peace with all the world, and the temple of Janus was 
shut for the second time since the foundation of the city, m jlta-u'- 
But the interval of repose was brief A war soon broke ^^-^^ ^'^■''^^ 
out with the Illyr' ians,^ which led the Roman legions, for the first 
time, across the Adriat' ic. (229 B. C.) The Illyr' ians had com- 
mitted numerous piracies on the Italian coasts, and when ambassa- 
dors were sent to demand reparation, Teu' ta, the Illyr' ian queen, 
told them that piracy was the national custom of her subjects, and 
she could not forbid them what was their right and privilege. One 
of the ambassadors thereupon told her that it was the custom of the 

1. The Illijr' ians were inhabitants of Jllyr' ia or Illyr' ician, a country bordering on tiio 
Adriat' ic sea, opposite Italy, and bordered on the south-east by Epirus and Macedonia. {Map 
No. VIII.) 

a. Niebuhr, B. iii. p. 275, and iv. 70. 



Wb ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I 

Romans to do away with bad customs ; and so incensed was the 
queen at his boldness that she procured his assassination. 

12. The Illyr'ians, after successive defeats, were glad to conclude 
a peace with the Romans, and to abandon their piracies, both on the 
Italian and G-recian coasts. (228 B. C.) Several Greek communi- 
ties showed themselves grateful for the favor ; a copy of the treaty 
was read in the assembly of the Achaean league ; and the Corinthians 
conferred upon the Romans the right of taking part in the Isthmian 
games. Roman encroachments on the territory of the Gauls next 

IV WAR ^I'o^^g^t on a war with that fierce people, and a vast swarm 
WITH THE of the barbarians poured down upon Italy, and advanced 
GAULS. irresistibly as far as Clusium, a distance of only three 
days' journey from Rome. (226 B. C.) After four years continu- 
ance the war was ended by a great victory gained over the Gauls by 
Claudius Marcellus, at Clastid' ium,^ where the noted Gallic leader, 
Viridomarus, was slain. (222 B. C.) 

13. While Rome was thus engaged, events were secretly ripening 
for another war with Carthage. Hamil' car, the soul of the Cartha- 
ginian councils, and the sworn enemy of Rome, had turned his eyes 
to Spain,''^ with the view of forming a province there which should 
compensate for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. " I have three sons," 
said this veteran warrior, " whom I shall rear like so many lion's- 
whelps against the Romans." "When he set out for Spain, where 
Carthage then had several colonies, he took his son Hannibal, then 
only nine years of age, to the altar, and made him swear eternal 
enmity to Rome. 

14. In a few years the Carthaginians gained possession of all the 
south of Spain, and Hamil' car being dead, the youthful Hannibal, 
who proved himself the greatest general of antiquity, was appointed 
to the command of their armies. The rapid progress of his Spanish 
conquests alarmed the Romans. When the people of Sagun' tum,^ 

1. Clastid' ium, (now Chiasteggio,) was in that part of Cisalpine Gaul called Liguria, south 
of the river Po, aud a short distance south-east from the modern Pavia. (See Pavia, J\Iap No. 
VIII.) 

2. Spain^ (consistino: of the present Spain and Portugal,) called by the Greeks Iberia, and by 
the Romans Hispania, ^mhrviCQd. all the great peninsula in the south-west of Em-ope. The 
divisions by which it is best known in ancient history are those of Tarraconensis, Lusitania^ 
and Bmtica, which Avere made during the reign of Augustus, when, for the first time, the 
country was wholly subdued by the Romans. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. San-un' turn was built on a hill of black marble in the east of Spain, about four miles from 
the Mediterranean, and fifteen miles norlh-east from the modern Valencia. Half way up the 
hill are still to be seen the ruins of a theatre, forming an exact semi-circle, and capable of 
accommodating nine thousand spectators. Other ruins are found in the vicinity. The castle or 



Chap. V.] ROMAN HISTORY. 157 

a Grecian city on the eastern coast, found themselves exposed to his 
rage, they applied to Rome for aid ; but the ambassadors of the 
latter power, who had been sent to remonstrate with Hannibal, were 
treated with contempt ; and Sagun' turn, after a siege of eight months, 
was taken. (219 B. C.) Hannibal then crossed the Iberus,^ and 
invaded the tribes of Catalonia,'^ which were in alliance with Rome. 
A Roman embassy was then sent to Carthage with the preposterous 
demand that Hannibal and his army should be delivered up as satis- 
faction for the trespass upon Roman territory ; and when this was 
refused, the Roman commissioners, according to the prescribed form 
of their country, made the declaration of war. Both parties were 
already prepared for the long-anticipated contest. (218 B. C.) 

15. The plan of Hannibal, at the opening of the second Punic 
war, was to carry the war into Italy ; while that of the Roman con- 
suls, Publius Scipio and Sempronius, was to confine it to Spain, and 
to attack Carthage. Hannibal quickly passed over the v. second 
Pyrenees, and rapidly traversing the lower part of Gaul,^ punic war. 
though opposed by the warlike tribes through which his march lay, 
and avoiding the army of Scipio, which had landed at Marseilles,* 
crossed the Alps at the head of nearly thirty thousand men, and had 
taken Turin^ by storm before Scipio could return to Italy to oppose 

citadel on the top of the hill has been successively occupied by the Sagun' tines, Carthaginians, 
Romans, Moors, and Spaniards. Along the foot of the hill has been built the modern town of 
jMurviedro, now containing a population of about six thousand inhabitants. (Map No. XIII.) 

1. Iberus, now the Ebro, rises in the north of Spain, in the country of the ancient Cantabri, 
and flows with a south-eastern course into the RIedilerranean sea. Before the second Punic 
war this river formed the boundary between the Roman and Carthaginian territories ; and, in 
tlie time of Charlemagne, between the iMoorish and Christian dominions. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. Catalonia is the name by which the north-eastern part of Spain has long been known, and 
it is now a province of modern Spain. (Map No. XIIl.) 

3. Oaul embraced nearly the same territory as modern France. When first known it was 
divided among the three great nations of the Belgae, the Celtfe, and the Aquitani, but the 
Romans called all the inhabitants Oaiils, while the Greeks called them Celts. The Celts proper 
inhabited the north-western part of the countrj', the Belgas the north-eastern and eastern, and 
tlie Aquitani the south-weslern. The divisions by which Gaul is best known in ancient history 
are Lugduuensis, Belgica, Aquitania, and Narbonensis,— called the "Four Gauls," which were 
established by the Romans after the conquest of the country by Julius Caesar. As far back as 
we can penetrate into the history of western Europe, the Gallic or Celtic race ocupied nearly 
all Gaul, together with the two great islands north-west of the country, one of which, (England 
and Scotland) they called Alb-in, " White Island," and the other (Ireland) they called Er-in, 
" Isle of the West." (Map No. XIIL) 

4. Marseilles, anciently called Massila, was originally settled by a Greek colony from 
Phocis. It is now a large commercial clly, and sea port of the Mediterranean, situated iu a 
beautiful plain on the east side of the bay of the Gulf of Lyons. (Map No. XIIL) 

5. Turin, called by the Romans jlugusta Taurinorum, now a large city of north-western 
Italy, is situated on the northern or western side of the river Po, eighty miles south-west of 
Milan. (Map No. Vill.) 



158 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

his progress. In a partial encounter on the Tieinus^ the Koman 
cavalry was beaten bj the Spanish and Numidian horsemen,^ and 
Scipio, who had been severely wounded, retreated across the Po^ to 
await the arrival of Sempronius and his army. Soon after, the 
entire Roman army was defeated on the left bank of the Trebia,* 
when the hesitating Grauls at once espoused the cause of the victors. 
(218 B. C.) 

16. In the following year Hannibal advanced towards Rome, and 
Sempronius, falling into an ambuscade near Lake Trasimenus,^ was 
slain, and his whole army cut to pieces. (217 B. C.) In another 
campaign, Hannibal, after passing Rome, and penetrating into 
southern Italy, having increased his army to fifty thousand men, de- 
feated the consuls j^Emilius and Varro in a great battle at Cannae." 
(216 B. C.) The Romans, whose numbers exceeded those of the 
enemy, lost, in killed alone, according to the lowest calculation, more 
than forty-two thousand men. Among the slain was jSlmilius, one 
of the consuls. 

17. The calamity which had befallen Rome at Cannse shook the 
allegiance of some of her Italian subjects, and the faith of her 
allies; many of the Grecian cities, hoping to recover their inde- 
pendence, made terms with the victors ; Syracuse deserted the cause 
of Rome ; and Philip of Mac' edon sent an embassy to Italy and 
formed an alliance with Hannibal. (See p. 109.) But the Romans 
did not despond. They made the most vigorous preparations to 
carry on the war in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, and Africa, as well as 
in Italy : they formed an alliance with the G-recian States of ^tolia, 
and thus found sufiicient employment for Philip at home, and in the 

1. Tlie Ticinus, now Ticino, enters the Po from the north about twenty miles south-west 
from Milan. Near its junction with the Po stood the ancient city of Ticiyium, now called 
Pavia. (Map No. VIII.) 

2. jVumidia was a country of northern Africa, adjoining the Carthaginian territory on the 
west, and embracing the eastern part of the territory of modern Algiers. (Map No. IX.) 

3. The river Po, the Erid' anus or Padus of ihe ancients, rises in the Alps, on the confines 
of France ; and, flowing eastward, receives during its long course to the Adriat' ic, a vast num- 
ber of tributary streams. It divides the great plain of Lombardy into two nearly equal parts. 
{Map No. VIII.) 

4. The Trebia is a southern tributary of the Po, which enters that stream near the modern 
city of Piazenza, (anciently called Placentia) thirly-five miles south-east from Milan. {Map 
No. VIII.) 

5. Lake Trasimemis, (now called Perugia,) was in Etruria, near the Tiber, eighty miles 
north from Rome. (Map No. VIII.) 

6. Canna;, an ancient city of Apulia, was situated near the river Aufidus (now Ofanto) five 
or six miles from the Adriat' ic. The scene of the great battle between the Romans and Cartha- 
ginians is marked by the name of canipo di sangue, " field of blood ;" and spears, heads of 
lances, and other pieces of armor, still continue to be turned up by llie plough. (Map No. VIII.) 



Chap, v.] ROMAN HISTORY. 159 

end reduced him to the humilating necessity of making a separate 
peace. 

18. From the field of Cannae Hannibal led his forces to C'ap'ua, 
which at once opened its gates to receive him, but his veterans were 
enervated by the luxuries and debaucheries of that licentious city. 
In the meantime Fabius Maximus had been appointed to the com- 
mand of the Roman army in Italy, and by a new and cautious system 
of tactics — by avoiding decisive battles — by watching the motions 
of the enemy, harassing their march, and intercepting their con- 
voys, he gradually wasted the strength of Hannibal, who at length 
summoned to his assistance his brother Has' drubal, who had been 
contending with the Scipios in Spain. Has' drubal crossed the 
Pyrenees and the Alps with little opposition, but on the banks of 
the Metaurus^ he was entrapped by the consuls Livius and Nero, — • 
his whole army was cut to pieces, and he himself was slain. (B. C. 
207.) His gory head, thrown into the camp of Hannibal, gave the 
latter the first intelligence of this great misfortune. Before this 
event the ancient city of Syracuse had been taken by storm by the 
Romans, after the siege had been a long time protracted by the me- 
chanical skill of the famous Archimedes.^ 

19. At length the youthful Cornelius Scipio, the son of Publius 
Scipio, having driven the Carthaginians from Spain, and being 
elected consul, gained the consent of the senate to carry the war 
into Africa, although this bold measure was opposed by the age and 
experience of the great Fabius. Soon after the landing of Scipio 
near Utica,'^ Massinis' sa, king of the Numidians, who had previously 

1. The Metaurus, now the Metro, was a river of Umbria, which flowed into the Adriat' ic. 
The battle was fought on the left bank of the river, at a place now occupied by the village of 
Fossombrone. {Map No. VIII.) 

2. The city of Utica stood on the banks of the river Bagrada, (now the Mejerdak,} a few 
miles north-west from Carthage. Its ruins are to be seen at the present day near the port of 
Farina. {Map No. VIII.) 

a. Archimedes, the most celebrated mathematician among the ancients, was a native of Syra- 
cuse. He was highly skilled in astronomy, mechanics, geometry, hydrostatics, and optics, in 
all of which he produced many extraordinary inventions. His knowledge of the principle of 
specific gravities enabled him to detect the fraudulent mixture of silver in the golden crown of 
Iliero, king of Syracuse, by comparing the quantity of water displaced by equal weights of 
gold and silver. The thought occurred to him upon observing, while he was in the bath, that, 
he displaced a bulk of water equal to his own body. He was so highly excited by the dis- 
covery, that he is said to have run naked out of the bath into the street, exclaiming eureka ! 
" I have found it." His acquaintance with the power of the lever is evinced by his famous 
declaration to Hiero : "Give me where I ma^ itand, and I will move the world." At the time 
of the siege of Syracuse he is said to havt; fired the Roman fleet by means of immense reflect- 
ing mirrors. 



VSO ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

been in alliance with the Carthaginians, went over to the Romans, 
and aided in surprising and burning the Carthaginian camp of Has'- 
drubal, still another general of that name. Both Tunis and Utica 
were next besieged ; the former soon opened its gates to the Romans, 
and the Carthaginian senate, in despair, recalled Hannibal from 
Italy, for the defence of the city. (202 B. C.) 

20. Peace, which Hannibal himself advised, might even now have 
been made on terms honorable to Carthage, had not the Carthagi- 
nians, elated by the presence of their favorite hero, and confident 
of his success, obstinately resisted any concession. Both generals 
made preparations for a decisive engagement, and the two armies 
met on the plains of Zama ;^ but the forces of Hannibal were mostly 
raw troops, while those of Scipio were the disciplined legions that 
had so often conquered in Spain. Hannibal showed himself worthy 
of his former fame ; but after a hard-fought battle the Romans pre- 
vailed, and Carthage lost the army which was her only reliance. 
Peace was then concluded on terms dictated by the conqueror. Car- 
thage consented to confine herself to her African possessions, to keep 
no elephants in future for purposes of war, to give up all prisoners 
and deserters, to reduce her navy to ten small vessels, to undertake 
no war without the consent of the Romans, and to pay ten thousand 
talents of silver. (202 B. C.) Scipio, on his return home, received 
the title of Africanus, and was honored with the most magnificent 
triumph that had ever been exhibited at Rome. 

21. The second Punic war had brought even greater distress upon 
the Roman people than upon the Carthaginians, for during the six- 
teen years of Hannibal's occupation of Italy the greater part of the 
Roman territory had lain waste, and was plundered of its wealth, 
and deserted by its people ; and famine had often threatened Rome 
itself; while the number of the Roman militia on the rolls had 
been reduced by desertion, and the sword of the enemy, from two 
hundred and seventy thousand nearly to the half of that number. 
Yet in their greatest adversity the Roman people had never given 
way to despair, nor shown the smallest humiliation at defeat, nor 
manifested the least design of concession ; and when the pressure of 
war was removed, this same unconquerable spirit rapidly raised 
Rome to a state of prosperity and greatness which she had never at- 
tained before. 

1. Tfee city of Zama, the site of which is occupied by the modern village of Zowariu, was 
about a hundred miles southwest from Carthage. {Map No. VIII.) 



Chap, v.] ROMATST HISTORY. 161 

22. The state of the world was now higlily favorable for the ad- 
vancement of a great military republic, like that of Rome, to univer- 
sal dominion. In the East, the kingdoms formed from the fragments 
of Alexander's mighty empire were either still engaged in mutual 
wars, or had sunk into the weakness of exhausted energies; the 
Grecian States were divided among themselves, each being ready to 
throw itself upon foreign protection to promote its own immediate 
interests ; while in the West the Romans were masters of Spain ; 
their colonies were rapidly encroaching on the Gallic provinces ; and 
they had tributaries among the nations of Northern Africa. 

23. The war with Carthage had scarcely ended when an embassy 
from Athens solicited the protection of the Romans against the power 
of Philip II. of Mac' edon ; and war being unhesitatingly vi. a gre- 
declared against Philip, Roman diplomacy was at once ^'^^ ^^'^^ 
plunged into the maze of Grecian politics. (B. C. 201.) After a 
war of four years Philip was defeated in the decisive battle of 
Cynoceph' aloe, (B. C. 197,) and forced to submit to such terms as 
the conquerors pleased to dictate ; and at the Isthmian games the 
Greeks received with gratitude the declaration of their freedom under 
the protection of Rome. When, therefore, a few years later, the 
j^tolians, dissatisfied with the Roman policy, invited Antiochus of 
Syria into Europe, and that monarch had made himself master of 
Euboe' a, a plausible pretext was again offered for Roman inter- 
ference : and when the ^tolians had been reduced, Antiochus driven 
back, and Greece tranquillized upon Roman terms, an Asiatic war 
was open to the cupidity of the Romans. 

24. After a brief struggle, Antiochus, completely overthrown in 
the general battle of Magnesia,^ (B. C. 191,) purchased a peace by 
surrendering to the Romans all those portions of Asia vii. Syrian 
Minor bounded on the east by Bithyn' ia, Galatia, Cap- ^'^^• 
padocia, and Cilic'ia,^ pledging himself not to interfere in the affairs 
of the Roman allies in Europe — giving up his ships of war, and 
paying fifteen thousand talents of silver. The Romans now erected 
the conquered provinces, with the exception of a few Greek maritime 
towns, into a kingdom which they conferred upon Eumenes, their 

1. Magnesia, (now Manisa,) a city of Lydia, was situated on the southern side of the river 
Hermus, (now Kodus,) twenty-eight miles north-east from Smyrna. The modern Manisa is 
one of the neatest towns of Asia Minor, and contains a population of about thirty thousand 
inhabitants. There was another Magnesia, now in ruins, fifty miles south-east from Smyrna, 
(Map No. IV.) 

a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. VI. 
11 



162 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

ally, a petty prince of Per' gamus/ while to the Rhodians, also their 
allies, they gave the provinces of Lye' ia and Caria.^ 

25. Soon after the close of the second Punic war, Hannibal, 
having incurred the enmity of some of his countrymen, retired to 
Syria, where he joined Antiochus in the war against Rome. A clause 
in the treaty with the Syrian monarch stipulated that Hannibal 
should be delivered up to the Romans ; but he avoided the danger 
by seeking refuge at the court of Prasias, king of Bithyn' ia, where 
he remained about five years. An embassy was finally sent to de- 
mand him of Priisias, who, afraid of giving ofi'ence to the Romans, 
agreed to give him up, but the aged veteran, to avoid falling into the 
hands of his ungenerous enemies, destroyed himself by poison, in the 
sixty-fifth year of his age. The same year witnessed the death of 
his great rival and conqueror Seipio. (B. G. 183.) ^ The latter, 
on his return from carrying on the war against Antiochus, was 
charged with secreting part of the treasure received from the Syrian 
king. Scorning to answer tlie mijust accusation, he went as an exile 
into a country village of Italy, where he soon after died. 

26. The events that led to the overthrow of the Macedonian 
monarchy, and the reduction of Greece to a Roman province, have 

VIII. THIRD heen related in a former chapter. ^ Already the third 
PUNIC WAR. Punic war was drawing to a close, and the same year 
that Greece lost her liberties under Roman dominion, witnessed the 
destruction of the miserable remains of the once proud republic of 
Carthage. During the fift}^ years that had elapsed since the battle 
of Zama, the conduct of the Carthaginians had not afforded the Ro- 
mans any cause whatever for complaint, and amicable relations be- 
tween the two people might still have continued ; but the expediency 
of a war with Carthage was a favorite topic of debate in the Roman 
senate, and it is said that, of the many speeches which the elder Cato 
made on this subject, all ended with the sentence, delenda est Car- 
thago^ " Carthage must be destroyed." 

27. Carthage, still a wealthy, but feeble city, had long been har- 
assed by the encroachments of Massinis' sa, king of Numid' ia, who 

1. The Per' gavms here mentioned, the most important city of Mysia, was situated in the 
southern part of that country, in a plain watered by two small rivers which united to form the 
Caicua. (Map 'No. lY.) 

a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. VI. 

b. Some of the ancients placed the death of Hannibal one or two years later. The dates of 
Scipio's death vary from 183 to 187. 

c. Seep. 110, 



Chap. V.] ROMAN JIISTORY. 163 

appears to have been instigated to hostile acts by the Komans ; and 
although Massinis' sa had wrested from Carthage a large portion of 
her territory, yet the Romans, seeking a pretext for war, called Car- 
thage to account for her conduct, and without waiting to listen to 
expostulation or submission, sent an army of more than eighty 
thousand men to Sicily, to be there got in readiness for a descent 
upon the African coast. (149 B. C.) At Sicily the Carthaginan 
ambassadors were received by the consuls in command of the army, and 
required to give up three hundred children of the noblest Carthaginian 
families as hostages ; and when this demand had been complied with 
the army crossed over and landed near Carthage. The Carthagi- 
nians were now told that they must deliver up all their arms and 
munitions of war ; and, hard as this command was, it was obeyed.* 
The perfidious Romans next demanded that the Carthaginians should 
abandon their city, allow its walls to be demolished, and remove to 
a place ten miles inland, where they might build a new city, but 
without walls or fortifications. 

28. When these terms were made known to the Carthaginian 
senate, the people, exasperated to madness, immediately put to death 
all the Romans who were in the city, closed the gates, and, for want 
of other weapons, collected stones on the battlements to repel the 
first attacks of the enemy. Hasdrubal, who had been banished be- 
cause he was an enemy of the Romans, was recalled, and unexampled 
exertions made for defence : the brass and iron of domestic utensils 
were manufactured into weapons of war, and the women cut ofi" their 
long hair to be converted into strings for the bowmen and cordage 
for the shipping. 

29. The Romans had not anticipated such a display of courage 
and patriotism, and the war was prolonged until the fourth year 
after its commencement. It was the struggle of despair on the part 
of Carthage, and could end only in her destruction. The city was 
finally taken by Scipio ^milianus, the adopted son of the great 
Africanus, when only five thousand citizens were found within its 
walls, fifty thousand having previously surrendered on difi"erent occa- 
sions, and been carried away into slavery. Hasdrubal begged his 
life, which was granted only that he might adorn the triumph of 
the Roman general ; but his wife, reproaching him for his cowardice, 
threw herself with her children into the flames of the temple in 

a. " Roman commissioners were sent into the city, who carried away two thousand cata- 
pults, and two hundred thousand suits or armor." 



164 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

which she had taken refuge. The walls of Carthage were levelled 
to the ground, the buildings of the city were burned, a part of the 
Carthaginian territory was given to the king of Numid' ia, and the 
rest became a Roman province. (146 B. C.) Thus perished the 
republic of Carthage, after an existence of nearly eight hundred 
years, — like Greece, the victim of Roman ambition. 



We give below a description of Jerusalem, which was omitted by mistake in its proper 
place. 

Jerusalem^ a famous city of southern Palestine, and long the capital of the kingdom of 
Judah, is situated on a hill in a mountainous country, between two small valleys, in one of 
which, on the west, the brook Gihon runs with a south-eastern course, to join the brook 
KedroM in the nan ow valley of Jehoshaphat, east of the city. The modern city, built about 
three hundred years ago, is entirely surrounded by walls, barely two and a-half miles in 
circuit, and flanked here and there with square lowers. The boundaries of the old cily varied 
greatly at different times ; and they are so imperfectly marked, the walls having been wholly 
destroyed, that few facts can be gathered respecting them. The interior of the modern city is 
divided by two valleys, intersecting each other at right angles, into four hills, on which history, 
sacred and profane, has stamped the imperishable names of Zion, Acra, Bezetha, and Moriah. 
Mount Zion, on the south-west, the " City of David," is now the Jewish and Armenian quarter : 
Acra, or the lower city, on the north-west, is the Christian quarter ; while the Mosque of Omar, 
with its sacred enclosure, occupies the hill of Moriah, which was crowned by the House of the 
Lord built by Solomon. West of the Christian quarter of the city is Mount Calvary, the scene 
of the Saviour's crucifixion ; and on the eastern side of the valley of Jehoshaphat is the Mount 
of Olives, on whose western slope are the gardens of Gethsemane, enclosed by a wall, and still 
in a sort of ruined cultivation. A little west of Mount Zion, and near the base of Mount Cal- 
vary, is the pool of Gihon, near which '' Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed 
Solomon king over Israel." South of Mount Zion is the valley of Hinnom, watered by the 
brook Gihon. A short distance up the valley of Jehoshaphat, and issuing from beneath the 
walls of Mount Moriah, is 

" Siloa's brook, that flow'd 
Fast by the oracles of God." 

Jerusalem and its suburbs abound with many interesting localities, well authenticated as the 
scenes of events connected with the history of the patriarchs, and the sufferings of Christ; but 
to hundreds of others shown by the monks, minute criticism denies any claims to our respect. 
Considered as a modern town, the city is of very little importance: its population is about ten 
thousand, two-thirds of whom are Mohammedans : it has no trade— no industry whatever — 
nothing to give it commercial importance, except the manufacture, by the monks, of shells, 
beads, and relics, large quantities of which are shipped from the port of Jaffa, for Italy, Spain, 
and Portugal. 

Jerusalem is generally believed to be identical with the Salem of which Melchisedek was 
king in the time of Abraham. When the Israelites entered the Holy Land it was in the 
possession of the Jebusites ; and although Joshua took the city, the citadel on Mount Zion waa 
held by the Jebusites until they were dislcilged by Dav.d, who made Jerusalem the metropolis 
of his kingdom. 



Chap. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 1€6 

CHAPTER VI. 

ROMAN HISTORY: 

FIIOM THE CONQUEST OF GREECE AND CARTHAGE, 146 B. C, TO THEJ 
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA, 

ANALYSIS. 1. Situation of Spain AFTER THE FALL OF CiRTiiAGK. [Oeltib^riaas. Lusl- 
tanians.] — 2. Character, exploits, and death of Viriathus. — 3. Subsequent history of the Lusit&- 
nians. War with the Numan' tians. [Numan' tia.] — 4. Servile war in Sicily. Situation of 
Sicily. Events of the Servile war, — 5. Dissensions of the Gracchi. Corrupt state of society 
at Rome. — 6. Country and city population. — 7, Efforts of the tribunes. Character and efforta 
of Tiberius Gracchus. Condition of the public lands. — 8. The agrarian laws proposed by 
Tiberius. — 9, Opposed by the nobles, but finally passed. Triumvirate appointed to enforce 
them. Disposition of the treasures of At' talus. — 10. Circumstances of the death of Tiberius. — 
11. Continued opposition of the aristocracy — tribunesJiip of Caius Gracchus — and circumstances 
of his death.— 12. Condition of Rome after the fall of the Gracchi.— 13. Profligacy of the Ro- 
man senate, and circumstances of the first Jugurthine war. — 14. Renewal of the war with 
Jugurtha. Events of the war, and fate of Jugurtha. [Mauritania.] — 15. Germanic Invasion. 
[Cimbri and Teu' tones.] Successive Roman defeats. [Danube. Noreja.] 16. Marius, ap- 
pointed to the command, defeats the Teu' tones. [The Rhone. Aix.] 17. The Cimbri. Great- 
ness of the danger with which Rome was threatened. — 18. The social war, — 19, First 
MiTHRiDATic war, [Poutus, Eu' meues. Per' gamus,] — 20, Causes of the Mithridatic war, 
and successes of Mithridates, — Civil war between Ma' rius and Sylla. — 22, Triumph of 
the Marian faction. Death and character of Marius. — 23, Continuance of the civil war. 
Events in the East, Sylla master of Rome. — 23. Proscription and massacres. Death of Sylla. 
— 25. The Marian faction in Spain. Servile war in Italy. 

26. Second and third Mithridatic wars. Lucullus. Manil' ius, and the Manil' ian 
law. — 27. Pompey's successes in the East. Reduction of Palestine. Death of Mithridates. — 28. 
Conspiracy of Catiline. Situation of Rome at this period. Character and designs of Catiline. 
Circumstances that favored his schemes. By whom opposed. — 29. Cicero elected consul. 
Flight, defeat, and death of Catiline.— 30. The First Triumvirate. Division of power.— 31. 
Caesar's conquests in Gaul, Germany, and Britain. Death of Crassus. Rivalry between Caesar 
and Pompey. [The Rhine. Parthia.]— 32. Commencementof the Civil war betvv'een C^ksar 
AND Pompey. Flight of the latter. [Raven' na.]— 33. C;esar's successes. Sole dictator. Ilia 
defeat at Dyrrach' ium.— 34. Battle of Pharsalia. Flight, and death of Pompey. [Phars^lia. 
Peleu' slum.]— 35. Cleopatra. Alexandrine war. Reduction of Pontus, [Pharos,]— 36, Caesars 
clemency. Servility of the senate. The war in Africa, and death of Cato, [Thapsus.] — 37. 
Honors bestowed upon Caesar, Useful changes— reformation of the calendar,— 38, The war in 
Spain, [Munda.]— 39. Csesar, dictator for life. His gigantic projects. He is suspected of 
aiming at sovereign power, — 40, Conspiracy against him. His death, — 41. Conduct of Brutus. 
Mark Antony''s oration. Its effects.— 42. Ambition of Antony, Civil war. Second Triumvi- 
rate. The proscription that followed. — 43, Brutus and Cassius. Their defeat at Philippi. 
[Philippi,]— 44. Antony in Asia IMinor,— at the court of Cleopatra. [Tarsus.] Civil war in 
Italy. — 45. Antony's return. Reconciliation of the rivals, and division of the empire among 
them. [Brundiisium.] — 46. The peace is soon broken. Sextius Pompey. Lep' idus. Antony. 
—47. The war between Octavius and Antony. Battle of Actium, and disgraceful flight of 
Antony.— 48, Death of Antony and Cleopatra,— 49. Octa' vius sole master of the Roman 
world. Honors and offices conferred upon him. Character of his government, — 50, Success- 
ful wars,— followed by a general peace. Extent of the Roman empire. Birth of the Saviour. . 



166 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part L 

1 . After- the fall of Carthage and the Grecian republics, which 

were the closing events of the preceding chapter, the attention of 

the Roman people was for a time principally directed to Spain. 

When, near the close of the second Punic war, the Car- 

1. SPAIN 

AFTER THE thagiuiau dominion in Spain ended, that country was re- 

FALL OF garded as being under Roman jurisdiction ; although, 

beyond the immediate vicinity of the Roman garrisons, 

the native tribes, the most prominent of which were the Celtiberians^ 

and Lusitanians,^ long maintained their independence. 

2. At the close of the third Punic war, Viriathus, a Lusitanian 
prince, whose character resembles that of the "Wallace of Scotland, 
had triumphed over the Roman legions in several engagements, and 
had already deprived the republic of nearly half of her possessions in 
the pefiinsula. During eight years he bade defiance to the most for- 
midable hosts, and foiled the ablest generals of Rome, when the 
Roman governor Cae' pio, unable to cope with so great a general, 
treacherously procured his assassination.^ (B. C. 140.) 

3. Soon after the death of Viriathus the Lusitanians submitted to 
a peace, and niauy of them were removed from their mountain fast- 
nesses to the mild district of Valen' cia,^ where they completely lost 
their warlike character; but the Numan' tians* rejected with scorn 
the insidious overtures of their invaders, and continued the war. 
Two Roman generals, at the head of large armies, were conquered 
by them, and on both occasions treaties of peace were concluded 
with the vancjuished, in the name of the Roman people, but after- 

1. The Ccltiberians, whose country was sometimes called CVZ£«Je?-2rt, occupied the greatest part 
of the interior of Spain around the head waters of the Tagus. 

2. The Lusitanians, whose country was called Lusitdnia, dwelt on the Atlantic coast, and 
when first known, principally between the rivers Douro and Tagus. 

3. The modern district or province of Valencia extends about two hundred miles along the 
Bouth-eastern coast of Spain. The city of Valencia, situated near the mouth of the river 
Guadalaviar, (the ancient Tusia,) is its capital. {Map No. XIII.) 

4. J^^uman' tia, a celebrated town of the Celtib6rians, was situated near the source of the 
river Douro, and near the site of the modern village of C/iavaler, and about one hundred and 
twenty-five miles north-east from Madrid. 

a. Viruthus, at first a shepherd, called by the Romans a robber, then a guerilla chief, and 
finally an eminent military hero, aroused the Lusitanians to avenge the wrongs and injuries in- 
flicted upon them by Roman ambition. He was unrivalled in fertility of resources under defeat, 
skill in the conduct of liis troops, and courage in the hour of battle. Accustomed to a free 
life in the mountains, he never indulged himself with the luxury of a bed : bread and meat 
were his only fo )d, and water his only beverage ; and being robust, hardy, adroit, always 
cheerful, and dreading no danger, he knew how to avail himself of the wild chivalry of his 
countrymen, and to keep alive in them the spirit of freedom. During eight years he constantly 
harassed the Roman armies, and defeated many Roman generals, several of whom lost their 
lives in battle. Hia name still lives in the songs and legends of early Spain. 



Chap. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 167 

wards rejected by the Roman senate. Scip' io jEmllianus, at the 
head of sixty thousand men, was then sent to conduct the war, and 
laying siege to Numan' tia, garrisoned by less than ten thousand 
men, he finally reduced the city, but not until the Numan' tians, 
worn out by toil and famine, and finally yielding to despair, had de- 
stroyed all their women and children, and then, setting fire to their 
city, had perished, almost to a man, on their own swords, or in the 
flames. (B. C. 133.) The destruction of Numan'tia was followed 
by the submission of nearly all the tribes of the peninsiila, and Spain 
henceforth became a Roman province. 

4. Two years before the fall of Numan' tia, Sicily had become the 
theatre of a servile war, which merits attention principally on ac- 
count of the view it gives of the state of the conquered countries 
then under the jurisdiction of Rome. The calamities which usually 
follow in the train of long-continued war had swept away „_ servile 
most of the original population of Sicily, and a large war. 
portion of the cultivated lands in the island had been added, by con- 
quest, to the Roman public domain, which had been formed into 
large estates, and let out to speculators, who paid rents for the same 
into the Roman ' treasury. In the wars of the Romans, and indeed 
of most nations at this period, large numbers of the captives taken 
in war were sold as slaves ; and it was by slave labor the estates in 
Sicily were cultivated. The slaves in Sicily were cruelly treated, 
and as most of them had once been free, and some of high rank, it 
is not surprising that they should seek every favorable opportunity 
to rise against their masters. When once, therefore, a revolt had 
broken out, it spread rapidly over the whole island. Seventy thou 
sand of the slaves were at one time under arms, and in four success- 
ive campaigns four Roman praetorian armies were defeated. The 
most frightful atrocities were perpetrated on both sides, but the re- 
bellion was finally quelled by the destruction of most of those who 
had taken part in it. (B. C. 133.) 

5. "While these events were occuriug in the Roman provinces, af- 
fairs in the capital, generally known in history as the " dissensions 
of the Gracchi," were fast ripening^ for civil war. More 

1 TIT 7 1 1 1 • 1 • • I"- MSSEN- 

than two hundred years had elapsed snice the anmiosi- gjo^-g of 
ties of patricians and plebeians were extinguished by an '^^^^ 

, . . . .TTi TT Ti^ GRACCHI. 

equal participation m public honors ; but the wealth or 

conquered provinces, and the numerous lucrative and honorable 

offices, both civil and military, that had been created, had produced 



168 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I. 

corruption at home, by giving rise to factions which contended for 
the greatest share of the spoils, while, apart from these, new dis- 
tinctions had arisen, and the rich and the poor, or the illustrious and 
the obscure, now formed the great parties in the State. 

6. As the nobles availed themselves of the advantages of their 
station to accumulate wealth and additional honors, the large slave 
plantations increased in the country to the disparagement of free 
labor, and the detriment of small landholders, whose numbers were 
constantly diminishing, while the city gradually became crowded 
with an idle, indigent, and turbulent populace, attracted thither by 
the frequent cheap or gratuitous distributions of corn, and by the 
frequency of the public shows, and made up, in part, of emancipated 
slaves, who were kept as retainers in the families of their former 
masters. So long as large portions of Italy remained unsettled, 
there was an outlet for the redundancy of this growing populace ; but 
the entire Italian territory being now occupied, the indigent could 
no longer be provided for in the country, and the practice of colo- 
nizing distant provinces had not yet been adopted. 

7. The evils of such a state of society were numerous and for- 
midable, and such as to threaten the stability, of the republic. 
Against the increasing political influence of the aristocracy, the 
tribunes of the people had long struggled, but rather as factious 
demagogues than as honest defenders of popular rights. At length 
Tiberius Grac' chus, a tribune, and grandson of Scipio Africanus, 
one of the noblest and most virtuous among the young men of his 
time, commenced the work of reform by proposing to enforce the 
Licinian law, which declared that no individual should possess more 
than five hundred jugers,^ (about two hundred and seventy-five acres) 
of the public domain. This law had been long neglected, so that 
numbers of the aristocracy now cultivated vast estates, the occupancy 
of which had perhaps been transmitted from father to son as an in- 
heritance, or disposed of by purchase and sale ; and although the 
republic still retained the fee simple in such lands, and could at any 
time legally turn out the occupants, it had long ceased to be thought 
probable that its rights would ever be exercised. 

8. The law of Tiberius Grac' chus went even beyond strict legal jus- 
tice, by proposing that buildings and improvements on the public lands 
should be paid for out of the public treasury. The impression has 
generally prevailed that the Agrarian laws proposed by Tiberius 

a. Ajuger was nearly five-ninths of our acre. 



Chap. VI] ROMAN HISTORY. 169 

Grac' chus were a direct and violent infringement of the rights of 
private property ; but the genius and learning of Niebuhr have 
shown that they effected the distribution of public lands only, and 
not those of private citizens ; although there were doubtless instances 
where, incidentally, they violated private rights. 

9. When the senators and nobles, who were the principal land- 
holders, perceived that their interests were attacked, their exaspera- 
tion was extreme ; and Tiberius, whose virtues had hitherto been ac- 
knowledged by all, was denounced as a factious demagogue, a disturber 
of the public tranquillity, and a traitor to the conservative interests 
of the republic. When the law of Tiberius was about to be put to 
the vote in the assemblies of the people, the corrupt nobles engaged 
Octavius one of the tribune's colleagues, to forbid the proceedings ; 
but the people deposed hiir. from the tribuneship, and the agrarian 
law was passed. A permanent triumvirate, or comiZI^^^^ ^^ three, 
consisting of Tiberius Grac' chus, his brother Caius, and Ap' piu.«i 
Clau' dius, was then appointed to enforce the law. About the same 
time a law was passed, providing that the treasures which At' talus, 
king of Per' gamus, had recently becjueathed to the Roman people, 
should be distributed among the poorer citizens, to whom lands were 
to be assigned, in order to afford them the means of purchasing the 
necessary implements of husbandry.^ 

10. At the expiration of the year of his tribuneship, Tiberius 
offered himself for reelection, conscious that unless shielded by the 
sacredness of the office of tribune, his person would no longer be 
safe from the resentment of his enemies. After two of the tribes 
had voted in his favor, the opposing party declared the votes illegal, 
and the disputes which followed occupied the day. On the following 
morning the people again assembled to the election, when a rumor 
was circulated that some of the nobles, accompanied by bands of 
armed retainers, designed to attack the crowd and take the life of 
Tiberius. A tumult ensued, and a false report was carried to the 
senate, then in session, that Tiberius had demanded a crown of the 
people. The senate seized upon this pretext for violent interference ; 
but when the consul refused to disturb the people in their legal as- 
sembly, the senators rose in a body, and, headed by Seip' io Nasi'ca, 

a. In 133 B. C. At' talus Philometer bequeathed his khigdom and all his treasures to the Ro- 
man people. At' talus was cue of the worst specimens of Eastern despots, and took great 
delight in dispatching his nearest relatives by poison. The Romans had long looked upon 
his kingdom as their property, and his will was probably drawn up by Roman dictation. 



170 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet I. 

and accompanied by a crowd of armed dependants, proceeded to the 
assembly, where a conflict ensued, in which Tiberius and about three 
hundred of his adherents were slain. (B. C. 132.) 

11. Notwithstanding this disgraceful victory, and the persecutions 
that followed it, the ruling party could not abolish the triumvirate 
which had been appointed to execute the law of Tiberius. During 
ten years, however, little was accomplished by the popular party, 
owing to the powerful opposition of the aristocracy ; but after Caius 
Grac' chus, a younger brother of Tiberius, had been elected tribune, 
the cause of the people received a new impulse ; an ecjuitable division 
of the public lands was commenced, and many salutary reforms were 
made in the administration of the government. But, at length, 
Caius being deprived of the tribuneship by false returns and bribery, 
and his bitter enemy Ooim' lus having been elected consul by the 
ttrisrocraLiu faction, and afterwards appointed dictator by the senate, 
the followers of Caius were driven from the city by armed violence, 
and three thousand of their number slain. (B. C. 120.) The head 
of Caius was thrown at the feet of Opim' ius, who had offered for it 
a reward of its weight in gold.^ 

12. Thus ended what has been termed the " dissensions of the 
Gracchi;" and with that noble family perished the freedom of the 
republic. An odious aristocracy, which derived its authority from 
wealth, now ruled the State : the tribunes, becoming rich themselves, 
no longer interposed their authority between the people and their 
oppressors ; while the lower orders, reduced to a state of hopeless 
subjection, and despairing of liberty, became factious and turbulent, 
and ere long prepared the way, first for the tyranny of a perpetual 
dictatorsliip, and lastly for the establishment of a monarchy on the 
ruins of the commonwealth. 

13. The profligacy and corruption of the senate were manifest in 
the events that led to the Jugur' thine vfar, which began to embroil 

a. Tiberius and Caius Gr;vc chus, t'oougli of tlie noblest origin, and of superior natural en- 
dowments, arc said to have been indebted more to tlae judicious care of tlieir widowed mother 
Cornelia, tlian to nature, for tlie excellence of their characters. This distinguished Roman 
matron, the daughter of Scip' io Africanus the Elder, occupies a high rank for the purity and 
excellence of her private character, as well as for her noble and elevated sentiments. The fol- 
lowing anecdote of Cornelia is often cited. A Campanian lady who was at the time on a visit 
(o her, having displayed to Cornelia some very beautiful ornaments which she possessed, de- 
sired the latter, in return, to exhibit her own. The Roman mother purposely detained her in 
conversation until her children returned from scliool, when, pointing to them, she exclaimed, 
" There are my ornaments." She bore the untimely death of her soiis with great magnanimity, 
and in honor of her a statue was afterwards erected by the Roman people, bearing for an in- 
scription the words, " Cornelia., mother of the Oracchi.''^ 



Chap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 171 

the republic soon after the fall of the G-rac' chi. The Numid' ian 
king Micip' sa, the son of Massinis' sa, had divided iv. jugur'- 
his kingdom, on his death-hed, between his two sons thine war. 
Hiemp' sal and Adher' bal, and his nephew Jugur' tha ; but the 
latter, resolving to obtain possession of the whole inheritance, soon 
murdered Hiemp' sal, and compelled Adher' bal to take refuge in 
Home. The senate, won by the bribes of the usurper, decreed a 
division of the kingdom between the two claimants, giving to Jugur' tha 
the better jDortion ; but the latter soon declared war against his cousin, 
and, having gained possession of his person, put him to death. The 
senate could no longer avoid a declaration of war against Jugur' tha; 
but he would have escaped by an easy peace, after coming to Rome 
to plead his own cause, had he not there murdered another relative, 
whom he suspected of aspiring to the throne of Numid' ia. (B. C. 
109.) 

14. Jugur' tha was allowed to return to Africa; but his briberies 
of the Roman senators were exposed, and the war against him was 
begun anew. After he had defeated several armies, Metel' lus drove 
him from his kingdom, when the Numid' ian formed an 9,lliance with 
Bac' chus, king of Mauritania,^ but their united forces were success- 
ively routed by the consul Marius, formerly a lieutenant in the army 
of Metel' lus, but v/ho, after obtaining the consulship, had been sent 
to terminate the war. Eventually the Moorish king betrayed Jugur'- 
tha into the hands of the Romans, as the price of his own peace and 
security, (B. C. 106,) and the captive monarch, after gracing the 
triumph of Marius, was condemned to be starved to death in prison. 

15. Soon after the fall of Jugur' tha, Marius was recalled from 
his command in Africa to defend the northern provinces of Italy 
against a threatened invasion from immense hordes of the Cim' bri 
and Ten' tones,^ German nations, who, about the year y. germanic 
113, had crossed the Danube'' and appeared on the east- invasion. 

1. Mauritania was an extensive country of Northern Africa, west of Numid' ia, embracing 
the present Morocco and part of Algiers. (Map No. IX.) 

2. The Danube, the largest river in Europe, except the Volga, rises in the south-v/estern j)art 
of Germany, in the Duchy of Uaden, only about thirty miles from the Rlilne, and after a general 
south-eastern course of nearly eighteen hundred miles, falls into the Black Sea. (Map No. Vllf.) 

a. The barbarian torrent of the dm' bri and Teu' tones appears to have originated beyond 
the Elbe. The original seat of the Cim' bri was probably the Cimbrian peninsula, so called by 
the Romans,— the same as the modern Jutland, or Denmark. Opinions differ concerning the 
Teu' tones, some believing tJiem to have been the collective wanderers of many tribes between 
the Vistula and the Elbe, while others fix their original seats in northern Scandinavia— that ia, 
in the north of Sweden and Norway. 



172 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Paet L 

ern declivities of the Alps, where the Romans guarded the passes 
into Italy. The first year of the appearance of these unknown 
tribes, from which is dated the beginning of Grernian history,^ they 
defeated the Roman consul Papir' ius Car' bo, near Noreja,^ in the 
mountains of the present Styr' ia. Proceeding thence towards south- 
ern Gaul they demanded a country from the Romans, for which they 
promised military assistance in war ; but when their request was re- 
fused they determined to obtain by the sword what was denied them 
by treaty. Four more Roman armies were successively vanquished 
by them, the last under the consuls Man' lius and Cse' pio in the year 
105, with the prodigious loss of 80,000 Roman soldiers slain, and 
40,000 of their slaves. 

16. Fortunately for the Romans, the enemy, after this great vic- 
tory, turned aside towards the south of France and Spain, while 
Marius, who had been appointed to the command of the northern 
army, marching over the Alps towards Gaul, formed a defensive 
camp on the Rhone. ^ The Germans, returning, in vain tempted 
Marius to battle, after which they divided into two bands, the Cim'- 
bri taking up their march for Italy, while the Teu' tones remained 
opposed to Marius. But when the Teu' tones saw that their chal- 
lenge for battle was not accepted, they also broke up, and marching 
past the Romans, jeeringly asked them " if they had any commissions 
to send to their wives." Marius followed at their side, keeping upon 
the heights, but when he had arrived at the present town of Aix,^ in the 
south of France, some accidental skirmishing at the outposts of the 
two armies brought on a general battle, which continued two days, 
and in which the nation of the Teu' tones was nearly annihilated, 
(B. C. 102,) — two hundred thousand of them being either killed or 
taken prisoners. 

17. In the meantime the consul Catul' Ius had been repulsed by 
the Cim' bri in northern Italy, and driven south of the Po. Marius 
hastened to his assistance, and their united forces now advanced 
across the Po, and defeated the Cim' bri in a great battle on the Rau- 

1. JVbreja, or ^Toreia, was the capital of the Roman province of JVoi-icum. The site of this 
city is in the present Austrian province of Styria^ about sixty miles north-east from Laybach. 
{Map No. VIII.) 

2. The Rli07ie rises in Switzerland, passes through the Lake of Geneva, and after imiling 
with the Suoue flows south through the south-eastern part of France, and discharges its waters 
by four mouths into the Mediterranean. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. ^iz, called by the Romans .^quce Sextoo^ is situated in a plain sixteen miles north of Mar- 
seilles. {Map No. XIII.) 

a. Kohlrausch's Germany, p. 43 



Chap. VI.J ROMAN HISTORY I73 

dian plains.^ (B. C. 101.) Thus ended the war with the German 
nations. The danger with which it for a time threatened Rome was 
compared to that of the great Gallic invasion, nearly three hundred 
years before. The Romans, in gratitude to their deliverer, now 
styled Marius the third founder of the city. 

1 8. A still more dangerous war, called the social war, soon after broke 
out between the Romans and their Italian allies, caused yj_ ,pjjg 
by the unjust treatment of the latter, who, forming part of social war. 
the commonwealth, and sharing its burdens, had long in vain de- 
manded for themselves the civil and political privileges that were 
enjoyed by citizens of the metropolis. The war continued three 
years, and Rome would doubtless have fallen, had she not, soon after 
the commencement of the struggle, granted the Latin towns, more 
than fifty in number, all the rights of Roman citizens, and thus se- 
cured their fidelity. (90 B. C.)^ The details of this war are little 
known, but it is supposed that, during its continuance, more than 
three hundred thousand Italians lost their lives, and that many 
flourishing ' towns were reduced to heaps of ruins. The Romans 
were eventually compelled to offer the rights of citizenship to all 
that should lay down their arms ; and tranquillity was thus restored 
to most of Italy, although the Samnites continued to resist until 
they were destroyed as a nation. 

19. While these domestic dangers were threatening Rome, an im- 
portant African war had broken out with Mithridates, king of Pontus.^ 
It has been related that in the time of Antiochus the ^,, ^rr,c-„ 

vll. FIRST 

Great, king of Syria, the Romans obtained, by conquest mithridatic 
and treaty, the western provinces of Asia Minor, most ^^'^^' 
of which they conferred upon one of their allies, Enmenes, king of 
Per'gamus, and that At' talus, a subsequent prince of Per' gamus, 
gave back these same provinces, by will, to the Roman people. (See 
p. 161 and p. 169.) 

20. The Romans, thus firmly established in Asia Minor, saw with 
jealousy the increasing power of Mithridates, who, after reducing 
the nations on the eastern coasts of the Black Sea, had added to his 



1. Pontus was a country of Asia Minor, on the south-eastern coast of the Eiixine, having 
Colchis on the east, and Paphlagonla and Galatia on the west. 

a. The exact locality is unknown, but it was on a northern branch of the Po, between Ver- 
celli and Verona, probably near the present Milan. Some say near Vercelli, on the west bank 
of the Sessites. 

b. This was done by the celebrated Lex JiUia, or Julian law, proposed by L. Julius Csesar. 



174 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

dominions on tlie west, Paphlagonia and Cappadocia,^ whicli he 
claimed by inheritance. Nicomedes, king of Bithyn' ia, disputing 
with him the right to the latter provinces, appealed to the lioman 
senate, which declared that the disputed districts should be free 
States, subject to neither Nicomedes nor Mithridates. The latter 
then entered into an alliance with Tigranes, king of Armenia, — 
seized the disputed provinces — drove Nicomedes from his kingdom — 
defeated two large Koman armies, and, in the year 88, before the 
end of the social war, had gained j^ossession of all Asia Minor. All 
the Greek islands of the ^gean, except Rhodes, voluntarily sub- 
mitted to him, and nearly all the Grecian States, with Athens, 
throwing off the Roman yoke, placed themselves under his protection. 
Mithridates had received a Greek education, and was looked upon 
as a Grecian, which accounts for the readiness with which the Greeks 
espoused his cause. 

21. The Roman senate gave the command of the Mithridatic war 
to Sylla, a man of great intellectual superiority, but of profligate 
morals, who had served under Marius against Jugur' tha and the 

vm. CIVIL Cim' bri, and had rendered himself eminent by his ser- 
WAR BE- vices in the social war. The ambitious Marius, though 

TW EE\ MA ■ 

Rius AND niore than twenty years the senior of Sylla, had long 
SYLLA. regarded the latter as a formidable rival, and now he 
succeeded in obtaining a decree of the people, by which the com- 
mand was transferred from Sylla to himself. Sylla, then at the 
head of an army in the Samnite territory, immediately marched 
against Rome, and entering the city, broke up the faction of Marius, 
who, after a series of romantic adventures, escaped to Africa.^ 
(88 B. C.) 

22. Scarcely had Sylla departed with his army for Greece, to carry 
on the war against Mithridates, when a fierce contest arose within 

a. See Map of Asia Minor, No. IV. 

b. Marius fled first to OsUa, and thence along tlie sea-coast to Mintur'naB, where he was put 
on shore, at the mouth of the Liris, and abandoned by the crew of the vessel th.at carried him. 
After in vain seeking shelter in the cottage of an old peasant, he was forced to hide himself in 
the mud of the Pontine marshes ; but he was discovered by his vigilant pursuers, dragged out, 
and thrown into a dungeon at Mintur' use. No one, however, had the courage to put him to 
death ; and the magistrates of Mintur' na? therefore sent a public slave into the prison to kill 
bim ; but as the barbarian approached the hoary warrior his courage failed him, and the Min- 
tur' nians, moved by compassion, put iMarius on board a boat and transported him to Africa. 
Being set down at Carthage, the Roman governor of the district sent to inform him that unless 
he left Africa he should treat him as a public enemy. " Go and tell him," replied the wanderer, 
" that you have seen the exile jNlariiis sitting on the ruins of Carthage." In the following year, 
during the absence of Sylla, he returned to Italy. For localities of Pontine Marshes, Liris, 
and Mintur' ncn, see Map No. X. 



Chap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 175 

the city between the partisans of Sylla and Marius ; one of the con- 
suls, Cinna, espousing the cause of the latter, and the other, Octa- 
vius, that of the former. Cinna recalled the aged Marius ; both 
parties flew to arms ; and all Italy became a prey to the horrors of 
civil war. (B. C. 87.) The senate and the nobles adhered to Octa- 
vius ; but Rome was besieged, and compelled to surrender to the 
adverse faction. Then commenced a general massacre of all the op- 
ponents of Marius, which was continued five days and nights, until 
the streets ran with blood. Having gratified his revenge by this 
bloody victory, Marius declared himself consul, without going through 
the formality of an election, and chose Cinna to be his colleague ; 
but sixteen days later his life was terminated by a sudden fever, at 
the age of seventy-one years. Marius has the character of having 
been one of the most successful generals of Rome ; but after having 
borne away many honorable offices, and performed many noble ex- 
ploits, he tarnished his glory by a savage and infamous old age. 

23. During three years after the death of Marius, Sylla was con- 
ducting the war in Greece and Asia, while Italy was completely in 
the hands of the party of Cinna. The latter even sent an army to 
Asia to attack Sylla, and was preparing to embark himself, when he 
was slain in a mutiny of his soldiers. In the meantime Sylla, hav- 
ing taken Athens by storm, and defeated two armies of Mithridatcs, 
concluded a peace with that monarch ; (84 B. C.,) and having induced 
the soldiers sent against him to join his standard, he returned to Italy 
at the head of thirty thousand men to take vengeance upon his ene- 
mies, who had collected an army of four hundred and fifty cohorts, 
numbering one hundred and eighty thousand men,^- to oppose him. 
(B. C. 83.) But none of the generals of this vast army were equal, 
in military talents, to Sylla; their forces gradually deserted them, 
and after a short but severe struggle, Sylla became master of Borne. 

24. A dreadful proscription of his enemies followed, far exceed- 
ing the atrocities of Marius ; for Sylla filled not only Rome, but 
all Italy, with massacres, which, in the language of the old writers, 
had neither numbers nor bounds. He caused himself to be appointed 
dictator for an unlimited time, (B. C. 81,) reestablished the govern- 
ment on an aristocratical basis, and after having ruled nearly three 
years, to the astonishment of every one he resigned his poAver, and 
retired to private life. He died soon after, of a loathsome disease, 

a. " From the time of MArius, the Roman military forces are always counted by cohorts or 
small battalions, each containing four hundred and twenty men."— Niebuhr, ir. 195. 



176 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

at the age of sixty years, leaving, by bis own direction, the following 
cbaracteristic inscription to be engraved on his tomb. " Here lies 
Sylla, who was never outdone in good offices by his friend, nor in 
acts of hostility by his enemy." (B. C. 77.) 

25. A Marian faction, headed by Sertorius, a man of great mili- 
tary talents, still existed in Spain, threatening to sever that province 
from Rome, and establish a new kingdom there. After Sertorius 
had defeated several Roman armies, the youthful Pompey, after- 
wards surnamed the Great, was sent against him ; but he too was 
vanquished, and it was not until the insurgents had been deprived of 
their able leader by treachery, that the rebellion was quelled, and 
Spain tranquillized. (B. C. 70.) During the continuance of the 
Spanish war, a formidable revolt of the slaves, headed by Spar'tacus, 

^„„ a celebrated gladiator, had broken out in Italy. At first 

IX. SERVILE o ' 1 1 -1 1 

WAR IN Spar' tacus and his companions formed a desperate band 
ITALY. ^£ robbers and murderers, but their numbers eventually 
increased to a hundred and twenty thousand men, and three praeto- 
rian and two consular armies were completely defeated by them. 
The war lasted upwards of two years, and at one time Rome itself 
was in danger ; but the rebels, divided among themselves, were finally 
overcome, and nearly all exterminated, by the prastor Cras' sus, the 
growing rival of Pompey. (B. C. 70.) 

26. During the progress of these events in Italy, a second war had 
broken out with Mithridates, (83 B. C.,) but after a continuance of 

two years it had been terminated by treaty. (81 B. C.) 
AND THIRD Scvcu ycars later, Mithridates, who had long been pre- 
MiTHRiDATic paring for hostilities, broke the second treaty between 
WARS. j^^^ ^^^ ^^^ Romans by the invasion of Bythyn' ia, and 
thus commenced the third Mithridatlc war. At first Lucullus, who 
was sent against him, was successful, and amassed immense treasures; 
but eventually he was defeated, and Mithridates gained possession 
of nearly all Asia Minor. Manil' ius, the tribune, then proposed 
that Pompey, who had recently gained great honor by a successful 
war against the pirates in the Mediterranean, should be placed over 
all the other generals in the Asiatic provinces, retaining at the same 
time tlie command by sea. This was a greater accumulation of 
power than had ever been intrusted to any Roman citizen, but the 
law was adopted. It was on this ocasion that the orator Cicero 
pronounced his famous oration Pro lege Manilia^ (" for the Manilian 
law.") Caesar also, who was just then rising into eminence, approved 



Chap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 177 

the measure, while the friends of Cras' sus in vain attempted to de- 
feat it. 

27. Pompey, then passing with a large army into Asia, (B. C. 66,) 
in one campaign defeated Mithridates on the banks of the Euphrates, 
and drove the monarch from his kingdom ; and in the following year, 
after reducing Syria, thus putting an end to the empire of the Seleu'- 
cidse he found an opportunity of extending Roman interference to the 
affairs of Palestine. Each of the two claimants to the throne, the 
brothers Hyrcanus and Aristobiilus, sought his assistance, and as he 
decided in favor of the former, the latter prepared to resist the Roman, 
and shut himself up in Jerusalem. After a siege of three months 
the city was taken ; its walls and fortifications were thrown down ; 
Hyrcanus was appointed to be high-priest, and governor of the 
country, but was required to pay tribute to the Romans ; while 
Aristobiilus, with his sons and daughters, was taken to Rome to 
grace the triumph of Pompey. From this time the situation of 
Judea differed little from that of a Roman province, although for a 
while later it was governed by native princes ; but all of them were 
more or less subject to Roman authority. About the time of Pom- 
pey 's conquest of Jerusalem, Mithridates, driven from one province 
to another, and finding no protection even among his own relatives, 
terminated his life by poison. (B. C. 63.) His dominions and vast 
wealth were variously disposed of by Pompey in the name of the 
Roman people. 

28. While Pompey was winning laurels in Asia, the republic was 
brought near the brink of destruction by a conspiracy headed by the 
infamous Catiline. Rome was at this time in a state of complete 
anarchy ; the republic was a mere name ; the laws had ^^ conspi- 
lost their power ; the elections were carried by bribery; 
and the city populace was a tool in the hands of the 
nobles in their feuds against one another. In this corrupt s.tate of 
things Sergius Catiline, a man of patrician rank, and of great abili- 
ties, but a monster of wickedness, who had acted a distinguished 
part in the bloody scenes of Sylla's tyranny, placed himself at the 
head of a confederacy of profligate young nobles, who hoped, by 
elevating their leader to the consulship, or by murdering those who 
opposed them, to make themselves masters of Rome, and to gain 
possession of the public treasures, and the property of the citizens. 
Many circumstances, favored the audacious schemes of the conspira- 
tors. Pompey was abroad — Cras' sus, striving with mad eagerness 



RACY OF 
CATILINE. 



178 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

for power and riches, countenanced the growing influence of Catiline, 
as a means of his own aggrandizement — Caesar, laboring to revive 
the party of Marius, and courting the favor of the people by public 
shows and splendid entertainments, spared Catiline, and perhaps se- 
cretly encouraged him, while the only two eminent Romans who 
boldly determined to uphold their falling country were Cato the 
younger, and the orator Cicero. 

29. While the storm which Catiline had been raising was threat- 
ening to burst upon Rome, and every one dreaded the arch-conspira- 
tor, but no one had the courage to come forward against him, Cicero 
offered himself a candidate for the consulship, in opposition to Catiline, 
and was elected. An attempt of the conspirators to murder Cicero in his 
own house was frustrated by the watchful vigilance of the consul ; and 
a fortunate accident disclosed to him all their plans, which he laid be- 
fore the senate. Even in the senate-house Catiline boldly confronted 
Cicero, who there pronounced against him that famous oration which 
saved Rome by driving Catiline from the city. Catiline then fled to 
Etruria, where he had a large force already under arms, while seve- 
ral of his confederates remained in the city to open the gates to him 
on his approach ; but they were apprehended, and brought to punish- 
ment. An army was then sent against the insurgents, who were 
completely defeated ; and most of them, imitating Catiline, fought 
to the last, and died sword in hand. (B. C. 63.) Cicero, to whom 
the Romans were indebted for the overthrow of the conspiracy, was 
now hailed as the Father and Deliverer of his countrj^ 

30. Soon after the return of Pompey from x\sia, the jealousies 
between him and Cras' sus were renewed ; but Julius Csesar succeeded 

XII THE ^^ reconciling the rivals, and in uniting them with him- 
FiRST TRi- self in a secret partnership of power, called the First Tri- 
uMviRATE. ^^j^^yjj.r^^-Q ^QQ ig Q^ Thcsc mcu, by their imited in- 
fluence, were now able to carry all their measures ; and they virtually 
usurped the powers of the senate, as well as the command of the 
legions. CfBsar first obtained the office of consul, (13. C. 59,) and, 
when the year of his consulship had expired, was made commander 
of all Gaul, (B. C. 58,) although but a smull portion of that country 
was then under the Roman dominion. Cras' sus, Vvhose avarice was 
unbounded, soon after obtained the command of Syria, famed for its 
luxury and wealth ; while to Pompey were given Africa and Spain, 
although he left the care of his provinces to others, and still remained 
in Italy. 



Chap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 179 

3 1 . In the course of eight years Ccesar conquered all Gaul, which 
consisted of a great number of separate nations — twice passed the 
Rhine' into Germany — and twice passed over into Britain, and sub- 
dued the southern part of the island. Hitherto Britain had been 
known only by name to the Greeks and Komans ; and its first inva- 
sion by- Caesar, in the year 55 B. C, is the beginning of its authentic 
history. The disembarkation of the Romans, somewhere on the 
eastern coast of Kent,^ was firmly disputed by the natives ; but stern 
discipline and steady valor overawed them, and they profi"ered sub- 
mission. A second invasion in the ensuing spring was also resisted ; 
but genius and science asserted their usual superiority ; and peace, 
and the withdrawal of the invaders, were purchased by the payment 
of tribute. In the meantime Cras' sus had fallen in Parthia,'' (B. C. 
52,) thus leaving but two masters of the Roman world; but Pompey 
had already become jealous of the greatness of Csesar's fame, and on 
the death of Julia, the wife of Pompey and daughter of Caesar, the 
last tie that bound these friends was broken, and they became rivals, 
and enemies. Pompey had secured most of the senate to his inter- 
ests ; but Csesar, though absent, had obtained, by the most lavish 
bribes, numerous and powerful adherents in the very heart of Kome. 
Among others, Mark Antony and Quintus Cassius, tribunes of the 
people, favored his interests. 

32. When CtBsar requested that he might stand for the consulship 
in his absence, the senate denied the request. When or- xni. civil 
dered to disband his leeions and resign his provinces, he ^^^^^l 

& ^ . TWEEN C^SAR 

immediately promised compliance, if Pompey would do and pompey. 
the same; but the senate peremptorily ordered him to disband his 

1. The Rhine rises in Switzerland, only a few miles from the source of the Rhone — passes 
through Lake Constance— then flows west to the town of Basle, near the borders of France, 
thence generally north-west to the North Sea or German Ocean. It formed the ancient 
boundary between Gaul and the German tribes, and was first passed by Julius Caesar in his 
invasion of the German nation of the Sicambri. 

2. Po.rthia was originally a small extent of country, south-east of the Caspian Sea. After 
the death of Alexander the Great a separate kingdom was formed there, which gradually ex- 
tended to the Indus on the east and the Tigris on the west, until it embraced the fairest prov- 
inces of the old Persian monarchy. By the victory over Crassus the Parthians obtained a great 
increase of power, and during a long time after this event they were almost constantly at war 
with the Romans. Tlie Parthian empire was overthrown by the southern Persians 22t3 years 
after the Christian era, when the later Persian empire of the SassanidcB was established. "The 
mode of fighting adopted by the Parthian cavalry was peculiar, and well calculated to annoy, 
V\'hen apparently in full retreat, they would turn round on their steeds and discharge their 
arrows with the most unerring accuracy ; and hence, to borrow the language of an ancient 
writer, it was victory to them if a counterfeit flight threw their pursuers into disorder." 

a. The place where Caesar is believed to have landed is at the town of Deal, near what is 
called the South Foreland, sixty-six miles south-east from London. 



18a ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I 

army before a specified day, under the penalty of being declared a 
public enemy. (B. C. 49.) The tribunes Antony and Cassius fled 
to the army of Cassar then at Eaven' na/ bearing with them the hos- 
tile mandate of the senate, and by their harangues inflaming the sol- 
diers against the measures of the senatorial party. Caesar, confident 
of the support of his troops, now passed the Rubicon in hostile array, 
an act deemed equivalent to an open declaration of war against his 
country. The senate and Pompey, alarmed at the rapidity of his 
movements, and finding their forces daily deserting them, fled across 
the Adriat' ic into Greece ; and in sixty days from the passage of the 
Rubicon, Caesar was master of all Italy. 

33. Caesar soon obtained the surrender of Sicily and Sardinia, 
after which he passed over to Spain, where Pompey 's lieutenants 
commanded, — rapidly reduced the whole Peninsula, took Marseilles 
by siege on his return through Gaul, and, on his arrival at Rome, 
was declared by the remnant of the senate sole dictator ; but after 
eleven days he laid aside the office, and took that of consul. Pompey 
had already collected a numerous army in the eastern provinces, 
and thither Caasar followed him. Near Dyrrach' ium,^ in Illyr' i- 
cum, he assaulted the intrenched camp of Pompey, but was re- 
pulsed with the loss of many standards, and his own camp would 
have been taken had not Pompey called off his troops, in apprehen- 
sion of an ambuscade; on which Caesar remarked that "the war 
would have been at an end, if Pompey had known how to profit by 
victory." 

34. Caesar then boldly advanced into Thes' saly, followed by Pompey 
at the head of a superior force. The two armies met on the plains 
of Pharsalia,' where was fought the battle which decided the fate of 
the Roman world. (B. C. 48.) Caesar was completely victorious, 

1. Raven' na was originally built on the shore of the Adriat' ic, near the most southern 
mouth of the river Po. Augustus constructed a new harbor three miles from the old town, 
and henceforward the new harbor became the principal station of the Roman Adriat' ic fleet ; 
but such was the accumulation of mud brought down by the streams, that, as Gibbon relates, 
so early as the fifth or sixth centvu-y after Christ, " the port of Augustus was converted into 
pleasant orchards ; and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet 
once rode at anchor." Raven' na was the capital of Italy during the last years of the Western 
empire of the Romans, and it still contains numerous interesting specimens of the architecture 
of that period. 

2. JDyrrach' htm, which was a Grecian city, at first called Epidamnus, was situated on the 
Illyrian coast of Macedonia, north of Apollonia. Its modern name is Durazzo, an unhealthy 
villa-ge of Turkish Albania. 

3. PharsAlia wus a ciiy situated in the central portion of Thessaly, on a southern tributary 
of the Peneus. The name of Pharsa, applied to a few ruins about flfteen miles south-west 
from Larissa, marks the site of the ancient city. 



Ckap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 181 

and Pompey, fleeing in disguise from tlie field of battle, attended 
only by his son Sextus, and a few followers of rank, pursued his 
way to Mytilene, where he took on board his wife Cornelia and 
sailed to Egypt, intending to claim the hospitality of the young king 
Ptol' emy, whose father he had befriended. Ptol' emy, then at war 
with his sister Cleopatra, was encamped with his army near Peldsi- 
um,^ whither Pompey directed his course, after sending to inform 
the king of his approach. In the army of Ptol' emy there was a 
Koman, named Septim' ius, who advised the young prince to put 
Pompey to death, in order to secure the favor of Caesar ; and just 
as Pompey was stepping on shore from a boat that had been sent to 
receive him, he was stabbed, in the sight of his wife and son. Soon 
after Caesar arrived at Alexandria in Egypt in pursuit of the fugi- 
tives, when the ring and head of Pompey, which were presented to 
him, gave him the first information of the fate of his rival. He 
shed tears at the sight, and turned away with horror from the spec- 
tacle. He afterwards ordered the head to be burned with perfumes, 
in the Roman method, and loaded with favors those who had adhered 
to Pompey to the last. 

35. Caesar, in his eager pursuit of Pompey, had taken with him 
to Alexandria only a small body of troops, and when, captivated by 
the charms and beauty of Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen, who ap- 
plied to him for protection, he decided against the claims of her 
brother, the party of the latter conceived the plan of overwhelming 
him in Alexandria, so that his situation there was similar to that of 
Cortez in Mexico. The royal palace, in which Caesar had fortified 
himself, was set on fire, and the celebrated library established there 
by Ptol' emy Philadelphus was burnt to ashes. With difficulty 
Cgesar escaped from the city to the island of Pharos,^ where he 
maintained himself until reenforcements arrived. He then over- 
threw the power of Ptol' emy, who lost his life by drowning, and 
after having established Cleopatra on the throne he marched against 
Pharnaces, king of Pontus, son of Mithridates, whose dominions he 
reduced with such rapidity that he announced the result to the Ro- 

1. Peleiisium was a frontier city of Egypt, at the entrance of the eastern mouth of the 
Nile. 

2. Pharos was a small island in the bay of Alexandria, at the entrance of the principal har- 
bor, one mile from the shore, with which it was connected by a causeway. The celebrated 
" Tower of Pharos" was built on the island in the reign of Ptol' emy Philadelphus, to serve 
as a lighthouse. The modern lighthouse tower, which stands on the island, has nothing of the 
beauty and grandeur of the old one. 



182 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

man senate in the well known words, veni^ vidi, vici, " I came, I saw, 
I conquered." 

36. On Cassar's return to Rome, (B. C. 47,) after an absence of 
nearly two years, he granted a general amnesty to all the followers 
of Pompey, and by his clemency gained a strong hold on the aifec- 
tions of the people. The servilit3^ of the senate knew no bounds, 
and the whole rejoublic was placed in his hands. Still there was a 
large and powerful party in Africa and Spain opposed to him, headed by 
Cato, the sons of Pompey, and other generals. Ca3sar, passing over to 
Africa, defeated his enemies there in the decisive battle of Thapsus,* 
after which the inflexible Cato, who commanded the garrison of Utica, 
having advised his followers not to continue their resistance, commit- 
ted suicide. (46 B. C.) He had seen, he said, the republic passing 
away, and he could live no longer. Csesar expressed his regret that 
Cato had deprived him of the pleasure of pardoning him. 

37. The war in Africa had been finished in five months. Fresh 
honors awaited Caesar at Ptome. He enjoyed four triumphs in one 
month ; the senate created him dictator for ten years ; he was ap- 
pointed censor of the public morals, and his statue was placed oppo- 
site that of Jupiter, in the capitol, and inscribed, " To Caesar, the 
demigod." He made many useful changes in the laws, corrected 
many abuses in the administration of justice, extended the privileges 
of Roman citizens to whole cities and jDroviuces in difierent parts 
of the empire, and reformed the calendar upon principles established 
by the Egyptian astronomers, by making an intercalation of sixty- 
seven days between the months of November and December, so that 
the name of the December month was transferred from the time of 
the autumnal equinox to that of the winter solstice, where it still re- 
mains. 

38. From the cares of civil goverumeut Caesar was called to Spain, 
where Cneus and Sextus, the two sons of Pompey, had raised a large 
army against him. In the spring of the year 45 he defeated them in a 
hard-fought battle in the plains of Munda,'' after having been obliged, 
in order to encourage his men, to fight in the foremost ranks as a 
common soldier. Cassar said that he had often fought for victory, 
but that in this battle he fought for his life. The elder of Pompey's 

1. Thapsus, now JJemsas^ was a town of little importance on the sea-coast, about one 
hundred miles south-east from Carthage. 

2. Munda. was a town a short distance from the Mediterranean in the southern part of Spain. 
The little village of Monda in Grenada, twenty-five miles west from Malaga, is supposed to he 
near the site of the ancient city. 



Chap. VL] ROMAN HISTORY. 1 83 

sons was slain in the pursuit after the battle, but Sextus the younger 
escaped. After a campaign of nine months Caesar returned to Rome, 
and enjoyed a triumph for the reduction of Spain, which had termi- 
nated the civil war in the lloman provinces. 

39. Caesar was next made dictator for life, with the title of impera- 
tor and the powers of sovereignty, although the outward form of the 
republic was allowed to remain. His ever active mind now planned 
a series of foreign conquests, and formed vast designs for the im- 
provement of the empire which he had gained. He ordered the laws 
to be digested into a code, he undertook to drain the great marshes in 
the vicinity of Rome, to form a capacious harbor at the mouth of 
the Tiber, to cut across the isthmus of Corinth, to make roads across 
the Apennines, dig canals, collect public libraries, erect a new 
theatre, and build a magnificent temple to Mars. But while he was 
occupied with these gigantic projects the people became suspicious 
that he courted the title of king ; and at his suggestion, as is sup- 
posed, Mark Antony ofiered him a royal diadem during the celebra- 
tion of the feast of the Lupercalia ; but no shout of approbation fol- 
lowed the act, and he was obliged to decline the bauble.^ 

40. A large number of senators, headed by the preetors Cassius 
and Brutus, regarding Caesar as an usurper, soon after formed a con- 
spiracy to take his life, and fixed on the fifteenth (the Ides) of March, 
a day appointed for the meeting of the senate, for the execution of 
their plot. As soon as Caesar had taken his seat in the senate-house, 
the conspirators crowded around him, and as one of them, pretending 
to urge some request, laid hold of his robe as if in the act of sup- 
plication, the others rushed upon him with drawn daggers, and he 
fell pierced with twenty-three wounds, at the base of Pompey's statue, 
which was sprinkled with his blood.b (j^^ Q. 44,) 

41. As soon as the deed of death was consummated, Brutus raised 

a. " You all did see, that on the Lupercal, 

I thrice presented hlra a. kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition ? 

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious ; 

And sure, he is an honorable man." 

Jintonifs Oration. Shakspeare^s Julius Cmsar. 

b. "For when the noble Ctesar saw him stab, 

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors arms, 

Quite vanqiushed him : then burst his mighty heart ; 

And, in his mantle muffling up his face, 

Even at the base of Pompey's statue, 

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell." 

Antovy''s Oration. 



184 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

his bloody dagger, and congratulated the senate, and Cicero in par- 
ticular, on the recovery of liberty ; but the greater part of the sena- 
tors fled in dismay from Rome, or shut themselves up in their houses; 
and as the conspirators had formed no plans of future action, the 
minds of the citizens were in the utmost suspense ; but tranquillity 
prevailed until the day appointed by the senate for the funeral. 
Then Mark Antony, who had hitherto urged conciliation, ascended 
the rostrum to deliver the funeral oration. After he had wrought 
upon the minds of the people in a most artful manner by enumerating 
the great exploits and noble deeds of the murdered Caesar, he lifted 
up the bloody robe, and showed them the body itself, ' all marred by 
traitors.' The multitude were seized with such indignation and 
rage, that while some, tearing up the benches of the senate-house, 
formed of them a funeral pile and burnt the body of Caesar, others 
ran through the streets with drawn weapons and flaming torches, de- 
nouncing vengeance against the conspirators. Brutus and Cassius, 
and their adherents, fled from Rome, and prepared to defend them- 
selves by force of arms. 

42. Antony, assisted by Lep' idus, now sought to place himself at 
the head of the State ; but he found a rival in the young Octavius 
Csesar, the grandson of Caesar's sister Julia, and principal heir of the 
murdered dictator. The senate adhered to the interests of Octavius, 
and declared Antony a public enemy, and several battles had already 
been fought between the opposing parties in the north of Italy and 
Gaul, when the three leaders, Antony, Lep' idus, and Octavius, hav- 
ing met in private conference on a small island of the 

XIV. THE & r 

SECOND TRi- Rhine, agreed to settle their differences, and take upon 
uMviRATE. themselves the government of the republic for five years — 
thus forming the Second Triumvirate. (B. C. 43.) A cold-blooded 
proscription of the enemies of the several parties to the compact fol- 
lowed. Antony yielded his own uncle, and Lep' idus his own 
brother, while Octavius, to his eternal infamy, consented to the sac- 
rifice of the virtuous Cicero to satisfy the vengeance of his colleagues. 
Cicero was betrayed to the assassins sent to dispatch him, by one of 
his own domestics ; but, tired of life, he forbade his servants to de- 
fend him, and yielded himself to his fate without a struggle. 

43. Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the republican party, had 
by this time made themselves masters of Macedonia, Greece, and 
the Asiatic provinces ; and Octavius and Antony, as soon as they 
had settled the 2;overnment at Rome, set out to meet them. At 



Chap. VI.] ROMAJ^ HISTORY. 185 

Philip' pi/ a town in Thrace, two battles were fought, and fortune, 
rather than talent, gave the victory to the triumvirs. (B. C. 42.) 
Both Cassius and Brutus, giving way to despair, destroyed them- 
selves ; their army was dispersed, and most of the soldiers after- 
wards entered the service of the victors. Oetavius returned with 
his legions to Italy, while Antony remained as the master of the 
Eastern provinces. 

44 From Greece Antony passed over into Asia Minor, where he 
caused great distress by the heavy tribute he exacted of the inhab- 
itants. While at Tarsus,'^ in Cilicia, the celebrated Cleopatra came 
to pay him a visit ; and so captivated was the Roman with the 
charms and beauty of the Egyptian queen, that he accompanied her 
on her return to Alexandria, where he lived for a time in indolence, 
dissipation, and luxury, neglectful of the calls of interest, honor, and 
ambition. In the meantime a civil war had broken out in Italy ; for 
the brother of Antony, aided by Fulvia, the wife of the latter, had 
taken up arms against Oetavius; but it was not until the rebellion 
had been quelled, and Oetavius was everywhere triumphant, that An- 
tony saw the necessity of returning to Italy. 

45. On his way he met at Athens his wife Fulvia, whom he blamed 
as the cause of the recent disasters, treated her with the utmost con- 
tempt, and leaving her on her death-bed hastened to fight Augustus. 
All thought that another fierce struggle for the empire was at hand ; 
but the rivals had a personal interview at Brundusium,' where a re- 
conciliation was effected. To secure the permanence of the peace, 
Antony married Octavia, the half-sister of Oetavius. A new division 
of the empire was made ; Antony was to have the eastern provinces 
beyond the Ionian sea ; Oetavius the western, and Lep' idus Africa ; 

1. Philip' pi, a city in the western part of Thrace, afterwards included in Macedonia, was 
about seventy-five miles north-east from the present Saloniki. In addition to the victory gained 
here by Antony and Oetavius, it is rendered more interesting from the circumstance of its 
being the first place where the Gospel was preached by St. Paul, (see Acts, xvi.,) and also from 
the Epistle addressed by him to the Philippians. The ruins of the city still retain the name 
of Filibah, pronounced nearly the same as PhiUj)pi. (Map No. I.) 

2. Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, was situated on the river Cydnus, about twelve miles from 
the Mediterranean. It was the birth-place of St. Paul, of Antip' ater the stoic, and of Athen- 
odorus the philosopher. It is still a village of some six or seven thousand inhabitants, and 
some remains of its ancient magnificence are still visible. The visit of Cleopatra to Antony — 
herself attired like Venus, and her attendants like cupids, in a galley covered with gold, whose 
sails were of purple, the oars of silver, and cordage of silk — is finely described in Shakspeare's 
play of Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. scene 2. (Map No. IV.) 

3. Brundiisium, now Brindisi, one of the most important cities of ancient Italy, and the 
port whence the intercourse between Italy and Greece and the East was usually carried on, 
was situated on the coast of Apulia, about three hundred miles south-east from Rome. It once 
had an excellent harbor, which is now nearf.y filled up. (Map No. VII.) 



186 ANCIENT HISTORY. [Part I. 

and soon after, Sextius Pompey, who had long maintained himself in 
Sicily against the triumvirs, was admitted into the partnership, and 
assigned Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Achaia. 

46. The peace thus concluded was of short duration. Octavius, 
without any reasonable pretext for hostilities, quarrelled with Sextius 
Pompey and drove him from his dominions. Pompey fled to Phrygia, 
where he was slain by one of Anton3''s lieutenants. Lep' idus and 
Octavius next quarrelled about the possession of Sicily ; but Octavius 
corrupted the soldiers of Lep' idus, and induced them to desert their 
general, who was compelled to surrender his province to his rival. 
Antony, in the meantime, had been engaged in an unsuccessful expe- 
dition against the Parthians; after which, returning to Egypt, he 
once more became enslaved by the charms of Cleopatra, upon whom 
he conferred several Roman provinces in Asia. When his wife Oc- 
tavia set out from Rome to visit him he ordered her to return, and after- 
wards repudiated her, pretending a previous marriage with Cleopatra. 

47. After this insult Octavius could no longer keep peace with him, 
and as the war had long been anticipated, the most formidable prepa- 
rations were made on both sides, and both parties were soon in 
readiness. Their fleets met off the promontory of Ac' tium,^ in the 
Ionian sea, while the hostile armies, drawn up on opposite sides of the 
strait which enters the Ambracian Gulf, were spectators of the battle. 
(B. C. 31.) While the victory was yet undecided, Cleopatra, who 
had accompanied Antony with a large force, overcome with anxiety 
and fear, ordered her galley to remove from the scene of action. A 
large number of the Egyptian ships, witnessing her flight, withdrew 
from the battle ; and the infatuated Antony, as soon as he saw that 
Cleopatra had fled, apparently losing his self-possession, hastily fol- 
lowed her in a quick-sailing vessel, and being taken on board the 
galley of Cleopatra, became the companion of her flight. The fleet 
of Antony was annihilated, and his land forces, soon after, made 
terms with the conqueror. 

48. Octavius, after first returning to Italy to tranquillize some dis- 
turbances there, pursued the fugitives to Egypt. Antony endeavored 
to impede the march of the victor to Alexandria, but seeing all his 
efforts fruitless, in a paroxysm of rage he reproached Cleopatra witli 
being the author of his misfortunes, and resolving never to fall alive 
into the hands of his enemy, he put an end to his own life. When 

1. The promontory of Jlc' Hum was a small neck of land at the north-western extremity of 
Acarnaaia, at the entrance of the Ambracian GulJ\ now GmM oi Jirta. 



Chap. VI.] ROMAN HISTORY. 187 

Cleopatra, "who had shut herself up in her palace, found that Octa- 
vius designed to spare her only to adorn his triumph, she caused a 
poisonous viper to be applied to her arm, and thus followed Antony 
in death. (B. C. 30.) Egypt immediately submitted to the sway 
of Octavius, and became a province of the Roman empire. 

49. The death of Antony had put an end to the Triumvirate ; and 
Octavius was now left sole master of the Roman world. While 
taking the most effectual measures to secure his power, xv. octa- 
he dissembled his real purposes, and talked of restoring ^'^s sole 

,,. , . .11 o • • MASTER OF 

the republic ; but it was evident that a free constitution .y.^^ roman 
could no longer be maintained ; — the most eminent citi- world. 
zens besought him to take the government into his own hands, and at 
the beginning of the 28th year before the Christian era, the history 
of the Ro7nan Republic ends. All the armies had sworn allegiance 
to Octavius ; he was made pro-consul over the whole Roman empire — 
he gave the administration of the provinces to whomsoever he 
pleased — and appointed and removed senators at his will. In the 
27th year B. C. the senate conferred upon him the title of Augustus, 
or " The Divine," and of Imperator^ or " chief governor," for ten 
years, and gave his name to the sixth month of the Roman year, 
(August) as that of Julius Csesar had been given to the fifth, and 
four years later he was made perpetual tribune of the people, which 
rendered his person sacred. Although without the title of a mon- 
arch, and discarding the insignia of royalty, his exalted station con- 
ferred upon him all the powers of sovereignty, which he exercised, 
nevertheless, with moderation, — seemingly desirous that the triumvir 
Octavius should be forgotten in the mild reign of the emperor Augustus. 

50. After a series of successful wars in Asia, Africa, and in Spain, 
and the subjugation of Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Illy' ria, 
\)^ the Roman arms, a general peace, with the exception of some 
trifling disturbances in the frontier provinces, was established 
throughout the vast dominions of the empire, which now extended 
on the east from the cataracts of the Nile to the plains of Scythia, 
and on the west from the Libyan deserts and the pillars of Hercules 
to the German ocean.^ The temple of Janus was now closed ^ for 
the third time since the foundation of Rome. It was at this auspi- 
cious period that Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, was born ; 
and thus, literally, was his advent the herald of " peace on earth, 
and good will toward men." 

a. (B. C. 10. Sec Map No. IX.) b. (B. C. 10.) 



PART II. 
MODERN HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

ROMAN HISTORY CONTINUED, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF 

THE CHRISTIAN ERA, TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN 

EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, A. D. 1, TO A. D. 416. 

SECTION I. 

ROMAN HISTORY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE DEATH 
OF DOMITIAN, THE LAST OF THE TWELVE C^SARS, A. D. 96. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Earlikr and later history of the empire compared. — 2. The empire 
at the end of the first century of the Christian era. The feeling with which we hurry over the 
closing scenes of Roman history. Importance of the history of the " decline and fall " of the 
empire. Subjects of the present chapter. 

3. Julius C^sar. Commencement of the Roman empire. — 4. The reign of Augustus. 
Rebellion of the Germans. — 5. Grief of Augustus at the loss of his legions. The danger of inva- 
sion averted. — 6. The accession of Tibe' rius. The selection of future sovereigns. — 7. Character 
of Tiberius, and commencement of his reign. — 8. German wars — German' icus. — 9. Sejanus, 
the minister of Tib6rius. [Capreae.] — 10. The death of Sejanus. Death of Tib6rius. Cruci- 
fixion of the Saviour. — 11. Calig' ula. His character, and wicked actions. — 12. His follies. 
His extravagance. His death.— 13. Claudius proclaimed emperor. His character.— 14. His 
two wives. His death. — 15. Foreign events of the reign of Claudius. — 16. Nero. The first five 
years of his reign. Death of Agrippina, and of Burrhus, Seneca, and Lucan. Conflagration 
of Rome. — 17. Persecutions of the Christians. Nero's extravagances. — 18. The provinces pil- 
laged by him. His popularity with the rabble. Revolts against him. His death.— 19. Foreign 
events of the reign of Nero. [Druids. The let!; ni London.] 

20. End of the reign of the Julian family. Brief reign of Galea.— 21. Character, and reign 
of Otho. — 22. Character, and reign of Vitel' lius. Revolt in Syria. — 23. Vitel' lius, forced to 
resist, is finally put to death by the populace. — 24. Temporary rule of Domitian. Character, 
and reign of Vespasian. — 25. Beginning, and causes of the Jewish w^ar. — 28. Situation of Jeru- 
salem, and commencement of the siege by the Roman army. Expectations of Titus. — 27. Prom- 
ises made to the Jews. Their strange infatuation. — 28. The horrors of the siege. — 29. Dreadful 
mortality in the city. The fall of Jerusalem. — 30. The number of those who perished, and of 
those made prisoners. J'ate of the prisoners. Destruction of the Jewish nation — 31. Comple- 
tion of the conquest of Britain. The enlightened policy of Agric' ola. [Caledonia.]— 32. Titus 
succeeds Vespasian. His character. Events of his brief reign. [Vesuvius. Herculaneum. 
Pompeii.]— 33. Domitian. His character, and the character of his reign. Persecutions.— 34. 



Chap. IJ ROMAN HISTORY. 189 

Provincial affairs. The triumphs of Domitian. [Moesia. Dacia. Germany.]— 35. Death of 
Domitian, — 36. Close of the reign of the " Twelve Caesars." Their several deaths. Character 
of the history of the Roman emperors thus far.— 37. The city of Rome, and the Roman empire. 
The beginning of national decay. 

1 . As we enter upon the time of the Roman emperors, Koman his- 
tory, so highly pleasing and attractive in its early stages, and during 
the eventful period of the Republic, gradually declines in interest to 
the general reader ; for the Roman people, whose many i. earlikk 
virtues and sufferings awakened our warmest sympathies, ^^^ later 

11 11 1 1-1 1 • HISTORY OF 

had now become corrupt and degenerate ; the liberal in- ^he empire 
fluences of their popular assemblies, and the freedom of compared. 
the Roman senate, had given place to arbitrary force ; and although 
the splendors of the empire continue to dazzle for awhile, hencefor- 
ward the political history of the Romans is little more than the 
biographies of individual rulers, and their few advisers and asso- 
ciates in power, who controlled the political destinies of more than 
a hundred millions of people. 

2. We shall find that, at the end of the first century of the 
Christian era, the empire, having already attained its full strength 
and maturity, began to verge towards its decline ; and we are apt to 
hurry over the closing scenes of Roman history with an instinctive 
feeling that shrinks from the contemplation of waning glories and 
national degeneracy. But while the history of the Republican era 
may exceed in interest that of the " decline and fall " of the empire, 
yet the latter is of far greater political importance than the former ; 
for, including the early history of many important sects, and codes, 
and systems, whose influences still exist, it is the link that connects 
the past with the present — the Ancient with the Modern world. 
The theologian and jurist must be familiar with it in order to under- 
stand much of the learning and history of their respective depart- 
ments ; and it deserves the careful preparatory study of every reader 
of modern European history ; as nearly all the kingdoms of modern 
Europe have arisen from the fragments into which the empire of 
the Caesars was broken. We proceed then, in the present chapter, 
to a brief survey, which is all that our limited space will allow, of, 
first, the overtowering greatness, and, second, the decline, and final 
overthrow, in all the west of Europe, of that mighty fabric of em- 
pire which valor had founded, and enlightened policy had so long 
sustained, upon the seven hills of Rome. 

3. The rule of Julius Caesar, who is called the first of the twelve 



1^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

Csesars, although he was not noininally king, was that of one who pos- 
ir. JULIUS sessed all the essential attributes of sovereignty ; and 
c^sAR. from the battle of Pharsalia, which decided the fate 
of the Roman world, might with propriety be dated the commence- 
ment of the Roman empire, although its era is usually dated at the 
beginning of the twenty-eighth year before the Christian era, — the 
time of the general acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Augustus. 

4. The reign of Augustus continued until the fourteenth year 
in. AUGus- after the birth of Christ— forty-four years in all, dating 

'T'^'s. from the battle of Ac' tium, which made Augustus sole 
sovereign of the empire. After the general peace which followed the 
early wars and conquests of the emperor, the great prosperity of his 
reign was disturbed by a rebellion of the Germans, which had been 
provoked by the extortions of Varus, the Roman commander on the 
northern frontier. Varus was entrapped in the depths of the German 
forests, where nearly his whole army was annihilated, and he himself, 
in despair, put an end to his own life. (A. D. 9.) Awful vengeance 
was taken upon the Romans who became prisoners, many of them 
being sacrificed to the gods of the Germans. 

5. The news of the defeat of his general threw Augustus into trans- 
ports of grief, during which he frequently exclaimed, '' Varus, restore 
me my legions !" It was thought that the Germans would cross the 
Rhine, and that all Gaul would unite with them in the revolt ; but 
a large Roman army under Tiberius, the son-in-law and heir of 
Augustus, was sent to guard the passes of the Rhine, and the danger 
was averted. 

6. Augustus, having designed Tiberius for his successor, associated 
him in his counsels, and conferred upon him so large a share of present 
power, that on the death of the emperor, Tiberius easily took his 

place, so that the nation scarcely perceived the change 
' of masters. (A. D. 14.) The policy of Augustus in 
selecting, and preparing the way for, the future sovereign, was suc- 
cessfully imitated by nearly all his successors during nearly two cen- 
turies, although the emperors continued to be elected, ostensibly at 
least, by the authority of the senate, and the consent of the soldiers, 

7. Tiberius, a man of reserved character, and of great dissimula- 
tion, — suspicious, dark, and revengeful, but possessing a handsome 
figure, and in his early j^ears exhibiting great talents and unwearied 
industry, having yielded with feigned reluctance to the wishes of the 
senate that he would undertake the government, commenced his 



Chap. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 19 1 

reign with the appearance of justice and moderation ; but after nine 
years of dissimulation, his sensual and tyrannical character openly 
exhibited itself in the vicious indulgence of every base passion, and 
the perpetration of the most wanton cruelties. 

8. The early part of his reign is distinguished by the wars carried 
on in Germany by his accomplished general and nephew, the virtu- 
ous German' icus ; but Tiberius, jealous of the glory and fame which 
German' icus was winning, recalled him from his command, and then 
sent him as governor to the Eastern provinces, where all his under- 
takings v^rere thwarted hj the secret commands of the emperor, who 
was supposed to have caused his death to be hastened by poison. 

9. The only confidant of Tiberius was his minister Sejanus, whose 
character bore a great resemblance to that of his sovereign. Secret- 
ly aspiring to the empire, he contrived to win the heart of Tiberius by 
exciting his mistrust towards his own family relatives, most of whom 
he caused to be poisoned, or condemned to death for suspected trea- 
son ; but his most successful project was the removal of Tiberius 
from Rome to the little island of Caprese,^ where the monarch re- 
mained during a number of years, indulging his indolence and de- 
baucheries, while Sejanus, ruling at Home, perjpetrated the most 
shocking cruelties in the name of his master, and put to death the 
most eminent citizens, scarcely allowing them the useless mockery of 
a trial. 

10. But Sejanus at length fell under the suspicion of the empe- 
ror, and the same day witnessed his arrest and execution — a mem- 
orable example of the instability of human grandeur. His death 
was followed by a general massacre of his friends and relations. At 
length Tiberius himself, after a long career of crime, falling sick, 
was smothered in bed by one of his officers, at the instigation of the 
base Calig' ula, the son of German' icus, and adopted heir of the 
emperor. It was during the reign of Tiberius that Jesus Christ was 
crucified in Judea, under the prastorship of Pontius Pilate, the Ro- 
man governor of that province. 

11. Calig' ula, whose real character was unknown to the people, 

1. Ciiprcm, now called Capri, 13 a small island, about ten miles in circumference, on the 
south side of the entrance to the bay of Naples. It is sun junded on all sides but one by lofty 
and perpendicular cliffs ; and in the centre is a secluded vale, remarkable for its beauty and 
salubrity. The tyrant was led to select this spot for his abode, as well from its difficulty of ac- 
cess, as from the mildness and salubrity of its climate, and the unrivalled magnificence of the 
prospects which it affords. He is said to have built no less than twelve villas in different parts 
of the island, and to have named the.n after the twelve celestial divinities. The ruins of one 
of them— the villa of Jove—are slill to be seen on Ihe summit of a cliff opposite Sorrento. 



19^ MODERN HISTORY. T Part II. 

received from them an enthusiastic welcome on his accession to the 
V. calig'- throne, (A. D. 37,) but they soon found him to be a 
ULA. greater monster of wickedness and dissimilation than his 
predecessor. A detailed description of his wicked actions, which 
some have attributed to madness, would aiford little pleasure to the 
reader. Not satisfied with mere murder, he ordered all the prisoners 
in Kome, and numbers of the aged and infirm, to be thrown to wild 
beasts ; he claimed divine honors, erected a temple, and instituted a 
college of priests to superintend his own worship ; and finding the 
senate too backward in adulation, he seriously contemplated the 
massacre of the entire body. 

12. His follies were no less conspicuous than his vices. For 
his favorite horse Incitatus he claimed greater respect and rever- 
ence than were due to mortals : he built him a stable of marble 
and a manger of ivory, and frequently invited him to the imperial 
table ; and it is said that his death alone prevented him from con- 
ferring upon the animal the honors of the consulship ! A fortune 
of eighteen millions sterling, which had been left by Tiberius, was 
squandered by Calig' ula, in a most senseless manner, in little more 
than a year, while fresh sums, raised by confiscations, were lavished 
in the same way. At length, after a reign of four years, Calig' ula 
was murdered by his own guards, to the great joy of the senators, 
who suddenly awoke to the wild hope of restoring the Republic. 

13. The illusion soon disappeared, for the spirit of Roman liberty 
no longer existed. The Praetorian guards,^ who had all the power 
in their own hands, insisting upon being governed by a monarch, 
proclaimed the imbecile Claudius emperor, at a time when he expected 

VI. nothing but death ; and their choice was sanctioned by 

CLAUDIUS, the senate. Claudius was an uncle of the late emperor, 

and brother of German' icus. He was so deficient in judgment and 

reflection as to be deemed intolerably stupid ; he was not destitute of 



a. The Praetorian guards were gradually iustituted by Augustus to protect his person, awe 
the senate, keep the veterans and legions in check, and prevent or crush the first movements 
of rebellion. Something similar to them had existed from the earliest times in the body of 
armed guides who accompanied the general in his military expeditions. At first Augustus 
stationed three cohorts only in the capital : but Tiberius assembled all of them, to the number 
of ten thousand, at Rome, and assigned them a permanent and well-fortified camp close to the 
vralls of the city, on the broad summit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. This measure of 
Tib6rius forever riveted the fetters of his country. The Praetorian bands, soon learning their 
own strength, and the weakness of the civil government, became eventually the real masters 
of the empire.— Gibbon's Rome, i. 61 ; and Niebuhr, v. 75. 



Chap. I.J ROMAN HISTORY. 193 

good nature, but unfortunately he was made the dupe of abandoned 
favorites, for whose crime history has unjustly held him responsible. 

14. For a time his wife Messalma, the most dissolute and aban- 
doned of women, ruled him at pleasure ; and numbers of the most 
worthy citizens were sacrificed to her jealousy, avarice, and revenge ; 
but finally she was put to death by the emperor for her shameless in- 
fidelity to him. Claudius then married his niece Agrippina, then a 
widow, and the mother of the afterwards infamous Nero. She was 
no less cruel in disposition than Messallna ; her ambition was un- 
bounded, and her avarice insatiable. After having prevailed upon 
Claudius to adopt as his heir and successor her son Nero, to the 
exclusion of his own children, she caused the emperor to be poisoned 
by his physician. (A. D. 54.) As Agrippina had gained the captain 
of the Praetorian guards to her interest, the army proclaimed Nero 
emperor, and the senate confirmed their choice. 

15. The foreign events of the reign of Claudius were of greater 
importance than his domestic administration. Julius Caesar had 
first carried the Roman arms into Britain in a brief and fruitless in- 
vasion ; but during the reign of Claudius the Romans began to 
think seriously of reducing the whole island under their dominion. 
At first Claudius sent over his general Plau'tus, (A. D. 43,) who 
gained some victories over the rude inhabitants. Claudius himself 
then made a journey into Britain, and received the submission of the 
tribes that inhabited the south-eastern parts of the island ; but the 
other Britons, under their king Carac' tacus, maintained an obstinate 
resistance until the Roman army was placed under the command of 
Ostorius, who defeated Carac' tacus in a great battle, and sent him 
prisoner to Rome. (A. D. 51.) 

16. Nero, the successor of Claudius, was a ^^outh of only seventeen 
when he ascended the throne. (A. D. 54.) He had been nurtured 
in the midst of crimes, and the Roman world looked upon 

him with apprehension and dread ; but during five years, 
while he still remained under the influence of his early instructors, 
Seneca and Burrhus, he disappointed the fears of all by the mildness 
of his reign. At length his mother Agi'ippina fell under the sus- 
picion of designing to restore the crown to the still surviving son of 
Claudius; and the emperor caused both to be put to death. After 
this he abandoned himself to bloodshed, in which he took a savage 
delight. He is accused of having caused the death of his able min- 

13 



194 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ister Burrlius by poison ; Seneca^- the philosopher, Lucan^ the poet, 
and most of the leadmg nobles, were condemned on the charge of 
treason ; and a conflagration in Rome which lasted nine days, and 
destroyed the greater part of the city, (A. D. 64,) was generally be- 
lieved to have been kindled by his orders ; and some reported that 
in order to enjoy the spectacle, he ascended a high tower, where he 
amused himself with singing the Destruction of Troy. 

17. In order to remove the suspicions of the people, he caused a 
report to be circulated that the Christians were the authors of the 
fire ; and thousands of that innocent sect were put to death under 
circumstances of the greatest barbarity. Sometimes, covered by the 
skins of wild beasts, they were exposed to be torn in pieces by de- 
vouring dogs ; some were crucified : others, wrapped in combustible 
garments, which were set on fire, were made to serve as torches to 
illuminate the emperor's gardens by night. Nero often appeared on 
the Roman stage in the character of an actor, musician, or gladiator ; 
he also visited the principal cities of Grreece in succession, v/here he 
obtained a number of victories in the public G-recian games. 

1 8. While he was engaged in these extravagances, the provmces 
of the empire were pillaged to support his luxuries and maintain his 
almost boundless prodigalities. To the lower classes, who felt no- 
thing of his despotism, he made monthly distributions of corn, to the 
encouragement of indolence ; and he gratified the populace of Rome 
by occasional supplies of wine and meat, and by the magnificent 
shows of the circus. Nero was popular with the rabble, which ex- 
plains the fact that his atrocities and follies were so long endured 
by the Roman people. At length, however, the standard of revolt 
was raised in Gaul by Vindex, the Roman governor, and soon after 
by Galba in Spain. Vindex perished in the struggle ; and G-alba 



a. Seneca, llio moral philosopher, was bora at Cordova in Spain, in the second or third 
year of the Cliristlan era; but at an early age he went to reside at Rome. Messaliua, 
who hated him, caused him to be banished to Corsica, where he remained eight years ; but 
Agrlppina recalled him from banishment, and appointed him, in conjunction with Burrhus, 
tutor to Nero. Burrhus, a man of stern virtue, instructed the prince in military science : 
Seneca taught him philosophy, the fine arts, and elegant accomplisliments. Although Seneca 
laid down excellent rules of morality for others, his own character is not above reproach. 
Being ordered by Nero to be his own executioner, he caused his veins to be opened in a hot 
bath ; but as, at his age, the blood flowed slowly, he drunk a dose of hemlock to accelerate 
his death. 

b. Lucav, a nephew of Seneca, and also a native of Cordova, was an eminent Latin poet, 
although he died at the early age of twenty-seven years. Of his many poems, the Pharsalia, 
or war between Cajsar and Pompey, is the only one that has escaped destruction. He incurred 
the enmity of Nero by vanquishing him in a poetical contest. 



Chap. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 195 

would have been ruined had not the Prgetorian guards, under the in- 
fluence of their commander Otho, renounced their allegiance. With 
this latter calamity Nero abandoned all hope ; and when he learned 
that the senate had declared him an enemy to the country, too cow- 
ardly to kill himself, he sought death by the hands of one of his 
freedmen, from whom he received a mortal wound. (A. D. 68.) 

19. During the greater part of the reign of Nero the empire en- 
joyed, in general, a profound peace ; the only wars of importance 
being with the Parthians and the Britons. The former were defeated 
and reduced by Cor' bulo, the greatest general of his time. This 
virtuous Roman had kept his faith even to Nero ; but the only re- 
ward which he received from the emperor for his victories, was — 
death. In Britain, Suetonius Paulinus defeated the inhabitants in 
several battles, and penetrating into the heart of the country, de- 
stroyed the consecrated groves and altars of the druids.^ After- 
wards the Iceni,'' under the command of their queen Boadic' ea, re- 
volted, burned London,^ then a flourishing Boman colony, reduced 
many other settlements, and put to death, in all, seventy thousand 
Romans. Suetonius avenged their fate in a decisive battle, in 
which eighty thousand Britons are said to have perished. The heroic 
Boadic' ea, rather than submit to the victor, put an end to her life by 
poison. During the reign of Nero also occurred the ftimous rebel- 
lion in Judea, and the beginning of the war which resulted in the 
destruction of the Jewish nation. 

20. With the death of Nero the reign of the Julian family, or 
the true line of the Caesars, ended ; although six succeeding empe- 
rors are included in what are usually styled " the twelve Csesars." A 
series of sanguinary wars, arising from disputed succession, followed. 

a. The dmids were the priests or ministers of religion among the ancient Gauls and Britons. 
Their chief seat was an island of the Irish Sea, now called Anglesey^ which was taken by Sue- 
tonius after a fanatical resistance. This general cut down the groves of the druids, and nearly 
exterminated both the priests and their religion. The druids believed in the existence of one Su- 
preme Being, a state of future rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul, and its 
transmigration through different bodies. They possessed some knowledge of geometry, natural 
philosophy, and astronomy ; they practiced astrology, magic, and sooth-saying ; they regarded 
the mistletoe as the holiest object in nature, and esteemed the oak sacred ; they abhorred im- 
ages ; they worshipped fire as the emblem of the sun, and in their sacrifices often immola- 
ted human victims. They exercised great authority in the government of the State, appointed 
the highest ofllcers in the cities, and were the chief administrators of justice. On the intrc- 
duction of Christianity into Britain, the druidical order gradually ceased. 

b. The Iccni inhabited the country on the eastern coast of England. Their chief town was 
a place now called Caistcr, about three miles from Norwich. 

c. London, anciently Lo7idinium, was in existence, as a town of the Trinobanles, before the 
invasion of Julius Caesar. 



IX. OTHO. 



I|i ^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

At first Galba, then in the seventy-third year of his are, a man of un- 
blemished personal character, was nniversally acknowl- 
edged emperor ; but he soon lost the attachment of the 
soldiery by his parsimony, while the influence of injudicious favorites 
led him into unseasonable severities for the suppression of the enor- 
mous vices of the times. Several revolts against his authority 
rapidly succeeded each other, and finally, Otho, who had been among 
the foremost to espouse his cause, finding that Gralba refused to 
nominate him for his successor, procured a revolt of the Prastorian 
guards in his o^vn favor. After a brief struggle in the streets of 
Rome, Galba was slain, after a reign of only seven months. 

21. While the unworthy Otho, a passive instrument in the hands 
of a licentious soldiery, remained at Rome, with the title of emperor, 

immersed in j^leasures and debaucheries, Yitel' lius, a 
man more vulgar and vicious than Otho, was proclaimed 

emperor by the legions under his command on the German frontier. 

A brief but sanguinary struggle followed, and Otho, having sustained 

a defeat in the north of Italy, fell by his OAvn hand, after a reign of 

ninety-five days. 

22. Vitel' lius, entering Rome in triumph, ordered more than a 
hundred of the prsetorian guards to be put to death ; but he en- 

X. vitel'- deavored to win the favor of the populace by large 
LIUS. donations of provisions, and expensive games and enter- 
tainments. His personal character was cruel and contemptible. 
Under the most frivolous pretences the wealthy were put to death, 
and their pro2}erty seized by the emperor ; and in less than four 
months, as stated by historians, this bloated and pampered ruler ex- 
pended on the mere luxuries of the table a sum equal to about 
seven millions sterling. But while wallowing in the indulgence of 
the most debasing appetites, he was startled by the intelligence that 
the legions engaged in the Jewish war in Syria had declared their 
general, Vespasian, emperor, and were already on their march 
towards Rome. 

23. As province after province submitted to Vespasian, and his 
generals rapidly overcame the little opposition they encountered, 
Vitel' lius in dismay would have abdicated his authority, but the 
Praetorian guards, dreading the strict discipline of Vespasian, com- 
pelled the wretched monarch to a farther resistance. Rome how- 
ever easily fell into tbe hands of the conquerors, and Vitel' lius, 
having retained the sceptre only eight months, was ignominiously 



Chap. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 197 

put to death, and liis mangled carcass thrown into the Tiber, amid 
the execrations of the same fickle multitude that had so recently 
welcomed his accession to power. (A. D. Dec. 69.) 

24. During several months, Domitian, the second son of Vespasian, 
ruled at Ptome in the absence of his father, taking part with the 
contending factions, committing many acts of cruelty, and already 
exhibiting the passions and vices which characterized his later years ; 
but at length the arrival of the monarch elect restored tranquillity 
and difiused universal jo}^ (A. D. 70.) Vespasian was xi. vespa- 
universally known and respected for his virtues, and his siaxV. 
mild and happy reign restored to the distracted empire some degree 
of its former prosperity. He improved tlie discipline of the army, 
enlarged the senate to its former numbers, and revived its authority, 
reformed the courts of law, and enriched Rome with many noble 
buildings, of which the Colosseum still remains, in much of its 
ancient grandeur — the pride and glory of his reign. 

25. Three years before his accession to the throne, Vespasian had 
been sent into Judea by Nero, (A. D. 67,) at the head of sixty 
thousand men, to conduct the war against the Jews, who xir. jewish 
had revolted against the Roman power. They had '^^^^ 
been driven to rebellion by the execution and tyranny of Florus the 
Roman governor, and having once taken up arms they were so 
strangely infatuated as to believe that, although without a regular 
army, or munitions of war of any kind, they could resist the united 
force of the whole Roman empire. The war thus commenced was 
one of extermination, in which mercy was seldom asked or shown by 
either party 

26. While the war raged around Jerusalem, and city after city 
was taken, and desolated by the massacre of its inhabitants, there 
were three hostile factions in Jerusalem, afterwards reduced to two, 
holding possession of different parts of the city, and wasting their 
strength in cruel conflicts with each other. When Vespasian depart- 
ed for Rome to assume the royal authority, he left the conduct of 
the war to his son Titus, who soon after commenced the siege of Je- 
rusalem, during the time of the feast of the passover, when the city 
was crowded with people from all Judea. Titus expected that al- 
though Jerusalem was defended by six hundred thousand men, such a 
multitude gathered within the walls of a poorly-provisioned city, 
would occasion a famine that would soon make a surrender inevitable. 

27. Although the Jews were promised liberty and safety if they 



t^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

would surrender the city ; and Joseplms, the future historian of his 
country, who had been taken prisoner by the Romans, was sent to 
expostulate with them on the folly of longer resistance ; yet they re- 
jected all warnings and counsel with scorn and derision ; and although 
the opposing Jewish factions were embroiled in a civil war, w^ith a 
strange infatuation both declared their resolution to defend the city 
to the very last, confident that God would not permit his temple and 
city to fall before the heathen. 

28. The horrors of the siege surpassed all that the pen can de- 
scribe. When the public granaries had become empty the people 
were plundered of their scanty stores, so that the famine devoured by 
houses and by families. At length no table was spread, nor regular 
meal eaten in Jerusalem. People bartered all their wealth for a meas- 
ure of corn, and ate it in secret, uncooked, or snatched half baked from 
the coals. They were often compelled, by torture, to discover their 
food, or were still more cruelly treated if they had eaten it. Wives 
would steal the last morsel from their husbands, children from 
parents, mothers from children ; and there were instances of dead 
infants being eaten by their parents ; so that the ancient prophecy, 
in which Moses had described the punishments of the unbelieving 
Jews, was fulfilled.^ 

29. At length the dead accumulated so fast that they were left un- 
buried, and were cast off the walls by thousands down into the val- 
leys ; and as Titus 'went his rounds, and saw the putrefying masses, 
he wept, and, stretching his hands to heaven, called God to witness 
that this was not his work ! By slow degrees one wall after another 
was battered down ; but so desperate was the defence of the Jews 
that it was three months after the lower city was taken before the 
Romans gained possession of the temple, and, in its destruction, com- 
pleted the fall of Jerusalem. (A. J). 70.) Titus would have saved 
the noble edifice, but was unable to restrain the rage of his soldiery, 
and the Temple was burnt. 

30. Josephus computes the number of his countrymen who 
perished during the war at more than one million three hundred 
thousand, with a total of more than a million prisoners. Thousands 
of the latter were sent to toil in the Egyptian mines ; but such were 
their numbers that they were offered for sale " till no man would 
buy them," and then they were sent into different provinces as pre- 

a. Deut. xxviii. 56, 57. 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 199 

sents, where they were consumed by the sword, or by wild beasts in 
the amphitheatres. With the destruction of the holy city and its 
famous temple ■ Israel ceased to be a nation, and thus was inflicted 
the doom which the unbelieving Jews invoked when they cried out, 
" His blood be on us and on our children." 

31. Britain had been only partially subdued prior to the reign of 
Vespasian, but during the two years after the fall of Jerusalem its 
conquest was completed by the Roman governor Julius Agric' ola, 
who was justly celebrated for his great merits as a general and a states- 
man. Carrying his victorious arms northward he defeated the Brit- 
tons in every encounter, penetrated the forests of Caledonia,' and 
established a chain of fortresses between the Friths of Clyde and 
Forth, which marked the utmost permanent extent of the Roman 
dominion in Britain. The fastnesses of the Scottish highlands were 
ever too formidable to be overcome by the Roman arms. By an 
enlightened policy Agric' ola also taught the Britons the arts of 
peace, introduced laws and government among them, induced them 
to lay aside their barbarous customs, taught them to value the con- 
veniencies of life, and to adopt the Roman language and manners. 
The life of Agric' ola has been admirably written by Tac' itus, the 
historian, to whom the former had given his daughter in marriage. 

32. On the death of Vespasian (A. D. 79) his son Titus succeeded 
to the throne. Previous to his accession the general opinion of 
the people was unfavorable to Titus, but afterwards his 

. XI] r. TITUS. 

conduct changed, and he is celebrated as a just and 
humane ruler ; and so numerous were his acts of goodness, that his 
grateful subjects bestowed upon him the honorable title of " benefac- 
tor of the human race." During his brief reign of little more than 
two years, Rome and the provinces were in the enjoyment of peace 
and prosperity, only disturbed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius,^ 

1. Ancient Caledonia comprehended that portion of Scotland which lay to the north of the 
Forth and the Clyde. A frith is a narrow passage of the sea, or the opening of a river into 
the sea. Agric' ola penetrated north as far as the river 7'ay. (See Map No. XVI.) 

2. Mount Vesuvius, ten miles south-east from the city of Naples, is the only active volcano 
at present existing on the European continent. Its extreme height is three thousand eight 
hundred and ninety feet— about two-fifths of that of JEt' na. Its tirst known eruption occurred 
on the 'i4th of August, A. D. 79, when Herculaneum and Pomp6ii were buried under showers 
of volcanic ashes, sand, stones, and lava, and the elder Pliny lost his life, being suffocated by 
the sulphurous vapor as he approached to behold the wonderful phenomena. It is related that, 
such was the immense quantity of volcanic ashes thrown out during this eruption, the whole 
country was involved in pitchy darkness ; and that the ashes fell in Egypt, Syria, and various 
parts of Asia Minor. Since the destruction of Herculaneum and Porap6ii there have been 
nearly fifty aullieuticated eruptions of Vesuvius. 



WIB MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

wHcli caused the destruction of Herculaneum^ and Pompeii,' 
(A. D. 79,) and by a great fire at liome, which was followed by a 
pestilence. (A. D. 80.) 

33. Domitian succeeded his brother without opposition, (A. D. 81,) 
although the perfidy and cruelty of his character were notorious. 

XIV. He began his reign by an afi"ectation of extreme virtue, 
DOMiTiAN. 1,^1 -^yas unable long to disguise his vices. There was 
no law but the will of the tyrant, who caused many of the most 
eminent senators to be put to death without even the form of trial ; 
and when, by his infamous vices, and the openness of his debaucheries, 
he had sunk, in the eyes of his subjects, to the lowest stage of 
degradation, he caused himself to be worshipped as a god, and ad- 
dressed with the reverence due to Deity. Both Jews and Christians 
were persecuted by him, and thousands of them put to death because 
they would not worship his statues. This is called in ecclesiastical 
history the second great persecution of the Christians, that under 
Nero being the first. 

34. It was in the early part of this reign that Agric' ola com- 
pleted the conquest of Britain ; but on the whole the reign of Domi- 
tian was productive of little honor to the Roman arms, as in Moe 'sia,^ 
and Dacia,* in Germany,^ and Pannonia, the Romans were defeated, 

1. Uerculdjieum v/as close to the sea, south of Vesuvius, and eight miles south-east from the 
city of Naples. Little is known of it except its destruction. It was completely buried under 
a shower of ashes, over which a stream of lava flowed, and afterwards hardened. So changed 
was the aspect of the whole country, and even the outlines of the coast, that all knowledge of 
the city, beyond its name, was soon lost, when, in 1713, after a concealment of more than six- 
teen centuries, accident led to the discovery of its ruins, seventy feet below the surface of the 
ground. 

2. rompeii was fifteen miles south-east from Naples, and was not buried by lava, but by 
ashes, sand, and stones only, and at a depth of only twelve or flfleen feet above the buildings. It 
has been excavated much more extensively than Herculaneum— disclosing the city walls, 
streets, temples, theatres, the forum, baths, monuments, private dwellings, domestic utensils, 
&c.,— the whole conveying the impression of the actual presence of a Roman town in all the 
circumstantial reality of its existence two thousand years ago. "The discovery of Pompeii has 
thrown a strong and steady light on many points connected with the private life and economy 
of the ancients, that were previously involved in the greatest obscurity." — The small number 
of skeletons discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii render it quite certain that most of the 
inhabitants saved themselves by flight. 

3 Mtr' sia, extending north to the Danube and eastward to the Euxine, corresponded to the 
present Turkish provinces of Sci-' via and Bulgaria. (Map No. IX.) 

4. Diicia was an extensive frontier province north of the Danube, extending east to the 
Euxine. It embraced the northern portions of the present Turkey, together with Transylvania 
and a part of Hungary. (Map No. IX.) 

5. The word Ocrmiinia was employed by the Romans to designate all the country east of the 
Rhine and north of the Danube as far as the German ocean and the Baltic, and eastward as 
far as Sarmatia and Dacia. The limits of Germanj', as a Roman province, were very indefinite. 
{Map No. IX.) 



Chap. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 201 

and whole provinces lost. In Moe' sia, Domitian himself was several 
times defeated, yet he wrote to the senate boasting* of extraordinary 
victories, and the servile body decreed him the honors of a triumph. 
In a similar manner other triumphs were decreed him, which caused 
Pliny the younger to say that the triumphs of Domitian were always 
evidence of some advantages gained by the enemies of Eome. 

35. At length, after a reign of fifteen years, Domitian was assassi- 
nated at the instigation of his wife, who accidentally discovered that 
her own name was on the fatal list of those whom the emperor designed 
to put to death. The soldiers, whose pay he had increased, and with 
whom he often shared his pkmder, lamented his fate; but the senate 
ordered his name to be struck from the Roman annals, and obliter- 
ated from every public monument. 

36. The death of Domitian closes the reign of those usually de- 
nominated " the twelve Csesars," only three of whom, Augustus, 
Vespasian, and Titus, died natural deaths. Julius Caesar fell under 
the daggers of conspirators in the very senate-house of Rome. Ti- 
berius, at the instigation of Calig' ula, was smothered on a sick bed : 
Calig' ula was murdered in his own palace while attending a theatri- 
cal rehearsal : Claudius was poisoned, at the instigation of his own 
wife, by his favorite physician : Nero, by the aid of his freedman, 
committed suicide to avoid a public execution : the aged Galba was 
slain in the Roman forum, in a mutiny of his guards : Otho, on 
learning the success of his rival ViteF lius, committed suicide : Vi- 
ter lius was dragged by the populace through the streets of Rome, 
put to death with tortures, and his mangled carcass thrown into the 
Tiber ; and Domitian was killed in his bed-chamber by those whom 
he had marked for execution. The heart sickens not more at the 
recital of these murders than of the crimes that prompted them; 
and thus far the history of the Roman emperors is little else than 
a series of constantly recurring scenes of violence and blood. 

37. I^ut as we pass from the city of Rome into the surrounding 
Roman world, we almost forget the revolting scenes of the capital in 
view of the still-existing power and majesty of the Roman empire — 
an empire the greatest the world has ever seen — and still great in 
the remembrance of the past, and in the influences which it has be- 
queathed to modern times. While the emperors were steeped in the 
grossest sensuality, and Rome was a hot-bed of infamy and crime, 
the numerous provincial governments were generally administered 
with ability and success ; and the glory of the Roman arms was 



20i2 MODERN HISTORY. [Part Ii. 

sustained in repelling the barbarous hordes that pressed upon the 
frontiers. But national valor cannot compensate for the want of 
national virtue : the soul that animated the Republic was dead ; the 
spirit of freedom was gone ; and national progress was already be- 
ginning to give place to national decay. 



SECTION II. 

ROMAN HISTORY FROM THE DEATH OF DOMITIAN, A. D. 96, TO THE ESTAB- 
LISHMENT OF MILITARY DESPOTISM, AFTER THE MURDER OF 
ALEXANDER SEVe' RUS, A. D. 235 = 139 YEARS 

ANALYSIS. 1. Nerva. His character, reign, and death. [Um' bria.]— 2. Trajan. His 
character, and character of his reign. Remarkable words attributed to him.— 3. His wars 
and conquests. His death. [Ctes' iphon. Trajan's column.] — 4. Persecutions of the Christians 
during the reign of Trajan. The proverbial goodness of Trajan's character.— 5. Accession of 
Adrian. His peaceful policj. General administration of the government. His visit to the 
provinces.— 6. Revolt of the Jews. Results of the Jewish war. Defences in Britain. [Solway 
Frith. River Tyne.]— 7. Doubtful estimate of Adrian's character and reign. His ruling 
passions. — 8. Accession of Titus Antoni' nus. — 9. His character, and the character of his 
reign. — 10. Marcus Aure'lius Antoni' nus. V6rus associated with him — 11. War with the 
Parthians. With the Germans. Remarkable deliverance of the Roman army. — 12. Character 
of the five preceding reigns. The evils to which an arbitrary government is liable. Illustrated 
in the annals of the Roman emperors. — 13. Accession of Com' modus. Beginning of his gov- 
ernment. — 14. The incident which decided his fluctuating character. His subsequent wicked- 
ness. — 15. I-Iis debaucheries and cruelties. His death. — 16. The brief reign of Pkrtinax. — 17. 
Disposal of the empire to Did'ius Julia' nus. — 18. Dangerous position of the new ruler. — 19. 
His competitors. [Dalmatia.] Successes of Septim' ius Seve' rus, and death of Julianus. 
— 20. Dissimulation of Sevdrus. He defeats Niger at Issus in Asia. His continued duplicity. 
Overthrow and death of Albinus. [Lyons.] — 21. Subsequent reign of Severus. His last illness 
and death. [York.]— 22. Caracal' la and G6ta. Death of the latter. Character, reign, and 
death of Caracal' la. Brief reign of Macri' nus. — 23. Accession of Elagaba' lus. — 24. His 
character and follies. Circumstances of his death. — 25. Alexander Seve' rus. His attempts 
to reform abuses. Character of his administration. His death. His successor. 

1. Domitian was succeeded by Nerva, who was a native of Um'- 
bria,^ but whose family orignally came from Crete. He was the 
first Eoman emperor of foreign extraction, and was chosen 
by the senate on account of his virtues. His mild and 
equitable administration forms a striking contrast to the sanguinary 
rule of Domitian ; but his excessive lenity, which was his greatest 
fault, encouraged the profligate to persevere in their accustomed 

1. Um' bria was a country of Italy east of Etriiria and north of the Sabine territory. 
The ancient Um' brians were one of the oldest and most numerous nations of Italy. {Map 
No. VIII. 



II. TRAJAN, 



Chap. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 203 

peculations. At lengtli the excesses of his own guards convinced 
him that the government of the empire required greater energy than 
he possessed, and he therefore wisely adopted the excellent Trajan 
as his successor, and made him his associate in the sovereignty. 
Nerva soon after died, (A. D. 98,) in the seventy-second year of his 
age, having reigned but little more than sixteen months. 

2, Trajan, who was by birth a Spaniard, proved to be one of 
Kome's best sovereigns ; and it has been said of him that he was 
equally great as a ruler, a general, and a man. After 
he had made a thorough reformation of abuses, he re- 
stored as much of the free Roman constitution as was consistent 
with a monarchy, and bound himself by a solemn oath to observe the 
laws ; yet while he ruled with equity, he held the reins of power 
with a strong and steady hand. No emperor but a Trajan could have 
used safely the remarkable words attributed to him, when, giving a 
sword to the prefect of the Praetorian guards, he said, " Take this 
sword and use it ; if I have merit, for me ; if otherwise, against me.-' 

3. In his wars, Trajan, commanding in person, conquered the 
Dacians, after which he passed into Asia, subdued Armenia, took 
Seleiicia and Ctes' iphon,^ the latter the capital of the Parthian 
kingdom, and sailing down the Tigris displayed the Roman standards 
for the first time on the waters of the Persian Gulf, whence he passed 
into the Arabian peninsula, a great part of which he annexed to the 
Roman empire. But while he was thus passing from kingdom to 
kingdom, emulating the glory of Alexander, and dreaming of new 
conquests, he was seized with a lingering illness, of which he died 
in Cilicia, in the twentieth year of his reign. (A. D. 117.) His 
ashes were conveyed to Rome in a golden urn, and deposited under 
the famous column which he had erected to commemorate his Dacian 
victories.^ 

1. Ctes' iphon was a city of Parthia, on the eastern "bank of the Tigris, opposite to and three 
miles distant from Seleiicia. 

a. Trajan's column, which is still standing, is the most beautiful mausoleum ever erected to 
departed greatness. Its height, not including the base, which is now covered with rubbish, is 
one hundred and fifteen feet ten inches; and the entire column is composed of twenty-four 
great blocks of marble, so curiously cemented as to seem one entire stone. It is ascended on 
the inside by one hundred and eighty -five winding steps. The noblest ornament of this pillar was 
a bronze statue of Trajan, twenty-five feet in height, representing him in a coat of arms, holding 
in the left hand a sceptre, and in the right a hollow globe of gold, in which, it has been assert.. 
ed, the ashes of the emperor were deposited. The column is now surmounted by a statue of 
St. Peter, which Sixtus V. had the bad taste to substitute in place of that of Trajan. On tha 
external face of the column is a series of bas-reliefs, running in a spiral course up the shaft, 
representing Trajan's victories, and containing two thousand five hundred human figures, 



204 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

4. The character of Trajan, otherwise just and amiable, is stained 
by the approval which he gave to the persecution of Christians in 
the eastern provinces of the empire ; for although he did not directly 
promote that persecution, he did little to check its progress, and al- 
lowed the enemies of the Christians to triumph over them. Still, 
the goodness of his character was long proverbial, inasmuch as, i-n 
later times, the senate, in felicitating the accession of a new emperor, 
were accustomed to wish that he might surpass the prosperity of 
Augustus and the virtue of Trajan. 

5. Whether Trajan, in his last moments, adopted his relative 
Adrian as his successor, or whether the will attributed to him was 
forged by the empress Plotina, is a doubtful point in history ; but 

Adrian succeeded to the throne with the unanimous dec- 
laration of the Asiatic armies in his favor, whose choice 
was immediately ratified by the senate and people. His first care 
was to make peace with the surrounding nations ; and in order to 
preserve it he at once abandoned all the conquests made by his pre- 
decessor, except that of Dacia, and bounded the eastern provinces 
by the river Euphrates. He diminished the military establishments, 
lowered the taxes, reformed the laws, and encouraged literature. He 
also passed thirteen years in visiting all the provinces of the empire, 
inspecting the administration of government, repressing abuses, and 
erecting and repairing public edifices. 

6. During his reign occurred another war with the Jews, who, in- 
censed at the introduction of Koman idolatry into Jerusalem, were 
excited to revolt by an impostor who called himself Bar- Cochab, [the 
son of a star,) and who pretended to be the expected Messiah. Two 
hundred thousand devoted followers soon flocked to the Jewish stand- 
ard, and for a time gained important advantages ; but Severus, after- 
wards emperor, being sent against them, in a sanguinary war of three 
years' duration he accomplished the almost total destruction of the Jew- 
ish nation. More than five hundred thousand of the misguided Jews 
are estimated to have fallen by the sword during this period ; and 
those who survived were " scattered abroad among all the nations of the 
earth." — In Britain, Adrian repaired the frontier fortresses of Agric'- 
ola as a bulwark against the Caledonians, and erected a second wall, 
from the SoiwayFrith^ to the Tyne,^ remains of which are still visible. 

1. Solway Frith, the north-eastern arm of the Irish sea, divides England from Scotland. 
{Map No. XVI.) 

2. The Tyne, an important river in the north of England, enters the sea on the eastern coast, 
at the southern extremity of Northnmberland county. (Map No. XVI.) 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY 205 

7. Althougli the general tenor of the reign of Adrian deserved 
praise for its etp-ity and moderation, yet his character had some 
dark stains upon it ; and the Romans of a hater age doubted whether 
he should be reckoned among the good or the bad princes. He al- 
lowed a severe persecution of the Jews and Christians ; he was 
jealous, suspicious, superstitious, and revengeful; and although in 
general he was a just and able ruler, he was at times an unrelenting 
and cruel tyrant. His ruling passions were curiosity and vanity ; 
and as they were attracted by diiferent objects, his character as- 
sumed the most opposite phases. 

8. Adrian, a short time previous to his death, {A. D. 138,) adopted 
for his successor, Titus Antoninus, surnamed Pius, on iv. titus 
condition that the latter should associate with him, in antoni' nus. 
the empire, Marcus Aurelius, and the youthful Verus. Antoninus, 
immediately after his accession, gave one of his daughters in mar- 
riage to Marcus Aurelius, afterwards called Marcus Aurelius Anto- 
ninus ; but while he associated the worthy Aurelius in the labors of 
government, he showed no regard for the profligate Verus. 

9. During twenty-two years Antoninus governed the Roman world 
with wisdom and virtue, exhibiting in his public life a love of re- 
ligion, peace and justice ; and in his private character goodness, 
amiability, and a cheerful serenity of temper, without affectation or 
vanity. His regard for the future welfare of Rome is manifest in 
the favor which he constantly showed to the virtuous Aurelius : the 
latter, in return, revered the character of his benefacter, loved him 
as a parent, obeyed him as a sovereign, and, after his death, regulated 
his own administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor. 

10. On the death of Antoninus, (A. D. 161,) the senate, distrust- 
ing Verus on account of his vices, conferred the sever- ^ parous 
eignty upon Marcus Aurelius alone ; but the latter im- aurelius 
mediately took Verus as his colleague, and gave him his antoni'nus. 
daughter in marriage ; and notwithstanding the great dissimilarity 
in the characters of the two emperors, they reigned jointly ten 
years, until the death of Verus, (A. D. 171,) without any disagree- 
ment ; for Verus, destitute of ambition, was content to leave the 
weightier affairs of government to his associate. 

1 1. Although Aurelius detested war, as the disgrace of humanity 
and its scourge, yet his reign was less peaceful than that of his pre- 
decessor ; for the Parthians overran Syria ; but they were eventually 
repulsed, and some of their own cities captured. During five years 



205 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Aurellus, in person, conducted a war against the German tribes, 
without once returning to Rome. During the German war occurred 
that remarkable deliverance of the emperor and his army from 
danger, which has been related both by pagan and Christian writers. 
It is said that the Romans, dra^vn into a narrow defile, where they 
could neither fight nor retreat, were on the point of perishing by 
thirst, when a violent thunder-storm burst upon both armies, and 
the lightning fired the tents of the barbarians and broke up their 
camp, while the rain relieved the pressing wants of the Romans. 
Many ancient fathers of the Church ascribed the seasonable shower 
to the prayers of the Christian soldiers then serving in the imperial 
army ; and we are told by Eusebius that the emperor immediately 
gave to their division the title of the " Thundering Legion," and 
henceforth relaxed his severity towards the Christians, whose perse- 
cution he had before tolerated. 

12. The reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Atonines, 
comprised a happy period in the annals of the Roman empire. 
These monarchs observed the laws, and the ancient forms of civil 
administration, and probably allowed the Roman^people all the free- 
dom they were capable of enjoying. But under an arbitrary gov- 
ernment there is no guarantee for the continuance of a wise and 
equitable administration ; for the next monarch may be a profligate 
sensualist, an imbecile dotard, or a jealous tyrant ; and he may 
abuse, to the destruction of his subjects, that absolute power which 
others had exerted for their welfare. The uncertain tenure by which 
the people held their lives and liberties under despotic rule, is fully 
illustrated in the dark pictures of tyranny which the annals of the 
Roman emperors exhibit. The golden age of Trajan and the An- 
tonines had been preceded by an age of iron ; and it was followed 
by a period of gloom, of whose public wretchedness, the shortness, 
and violent termination, of most of the imperial reigns, is sufiicient proof. 

13. Com' modus, the unworthy son of Aurelius, succeeded to the 
VI. COM.'- throne on the death of his father, (A. D. 180,) amidst 

MODUS. the acclamations of the senate and the armies. During 
three years, while he retained his father's counsellors around him, he 
ruled with equity and moderation ; but the weakness of his mind 
and the timidity of his disposition, together with his natural indo- 
lence, rendered him the slave of base attendants ; and sensual indul- 
gence and crime, which others had taught him, finally degenerated 
into a habit, and became the ruling passions of his soul. 



Ohap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 'M7 

14. A fatal incident decided liis fluctuating character, and sud- 
denly developed his dormant cruelty and thirst for blood. In au 
attempt to assassinate him, the assailant, aiming a blow at him with 
a dagger, exclaimed, " the senate sends you this." The menace pre- 
vented the deed ; but the words sunk deep into the mind of Com'- 
modus, and kindled the utmost fury of his nature. It was found 
that the conspirators were men of senatorial rank, who had been in- 
stigated by the emperor's own sister. Suspicion and distrust, fear 
and hatred, were henceforth indulged by the emperor towards the 
whole body of senators : spies and informers were encouraged ; 
neither virtue nor station afforded any security; and when Com'- 
modus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or 
remorse. He sacrificed a long list of consular senators to his wanton 
suspicion, and took especial delight in hunting out and exterminating 
all who had been connected with the family of the Autonines. 

15. The debaucheries of Com' modus exceeded, in extravagance 
and iniquity, those of any previous Roman emperor. He was 
averse to every rational and liberal pursuit, and all his sports were 
mingled with cruelty. He cultivated his physical, to the neglect of 
his mental powers ; and in shooting with the bow and throwing the 

^ javelin, Rome had not his superior. Delighting in exhibiting to the 
people his superior skill in archery, he at one time caused a hundred 
lions to be let loose in the amphitheatre ; and as they ran raging 
around the arena, they successively fell by a hundred arrows from, 
the royal hand. He fought in the circus as a common gladiator, and, 
always victorious, often wantonly slew his antagonists, who were less 
completely armed than himself This monster of folly and wicked- 
ness was finally slain, (A. D. 193,) partly by poisoning and partly by 
strangling, at the instigation of his favorite concubine Marcia, who 
accidentally learned that her own death, and that of several officers 
of the palace, had been resolved upon by the tyrant. 

16. On the death of Com' modus the throne was offered to Per'ti- 
nax, a senator of consular rank and strict integrity, who vn. per' ti- 
accepted the office with extreme reluctance, fully aware nax. 

of the dangers which he incurred, and the great weight of responsi- 
bility thrown upon him. The virtues of Per' tinax secured to him 
the love of the senate and the people ; but his zeal to correct abuses 
provoked the anger of the turbulent Proetorian soldiery, who pre- 
iorred the favor of a tyrant to the stern equality of the laws ; and 



208 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

after a reign of three months, Per' tinax was slain in the imperial 
palace by the same guards who had placed him on the throne. 

1 7. Amidst the wild disorder that attended the violent death of 
the emperor, the Prsetorian guards proclaimed that they would dis- 
pose of the sovereignty of the Roman world to the highest bidder ; 
and while the body of Per' tinax remained unburied in the streets 

viii. did' ius of Rome, the prize of the empire was purchased by a 

JULIA' Nus. yain and wealthy old senator, Did' ius Julianus, who, 

repairing to the Praetorian camp, outbid all competitors, and actually 

paid to each of the soldiers, ten thousand in number, more than two 

hundred pounds sterling, or nearly nine millions of dollars in all. 

18. The obsequious senate, overawed by the soldiery, ratified the 
unworthy negotiation ; but the Praetorians themselves were ashamed 
of the prince whom their avarice had persuaded them to accept ; the 
citizens looked upon his elevation with horror, as a lasting insult to 
the Roman name ; and the armies in the provinces were unanimous 
in refusing allegiance to the new ruler, while the emperor, trembling 
with the dangers of his position, found himself, although on the 
throne of the world, scorned and despised, without a friend, and 
even without an adherent. 

19. Three competitors soon appeared to contest the throne with 
Julianus, — Clodius Albinus, who commanded in Britain, — Pescen'- 

IX. septim'- nius Niger in Syria, — and Septim' ius Severus in Dal- 
lus SEVERUS. matia^ and Pannonia. The latter, by his nearness to 
Rome, and the rapidity of his marches, gained the advance of his 
rivals, and was hailed emperor by the people : the faithless Pnieto- 
rians submitted without a blow, and were disbanded ; and the senate 
pronounced a sentence of deposition and death against the terror- 
stricken Julianus, whose anxious and precarious reign of sixty-five 
days was terminated by the hands of the common executioner. 

20. While Severus, emploj'ing the most subtle craft and dissimu- 
lation, was flattering Albinus in Britain with the hope of being asso- 
ciated with him in the empire, he rapidly passed into Asia, and after 
several engagements with the forces of Niger completely defeated 
them on the plains of Issus, where Alexander and Darius had long 
before contended for the sovereignty of the world. Such was the 

1. Dalmatian aucienUy a part of lUyr' iciiin, and now the mo3t southern province of the 
Austrian empire, comprises a long and narrow territory on the eastern shore of the Adriat' ic. 
After the division of the Roman provinces under Con' stantine and Theodosius, Dalmatia bo 
came one of the most important partH of the empire. 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 209 

duplicity of Severus, that even in the letter in which he announced 
the victory to Albinus, he addressed the latter with the most friendly 
salutations, and expressed the strongest regard for his welfare, while 
at the same time he intrusted the messengers charged with the letter 
to desire a private audience, and to plunge their dagger to the heart 
of his rival. It was only when the infamous plot was detected that 
Albinus awoke to the reality of his situation, and began to make 
vigorous preparations for open war. This second contest for empire 
was decided against Albinus in a most desperate battle near Lyons,^ 
in Gaul, (A. D. 197,) where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans 
are said to have fought on each side. Albinus was overtaken in 
flight, and slain ; and many senators and eminent provincials suf- 
fered death for the attachment which they had shown to his cause. 

21. After Severus had obtained undisputed possession of the em- 
pire, he governed with mildness : considering the Roman world as 
his property, he bestowed his care on the cultivation and improve- 
ment of so valuable an acquisition, and after a reign of eighteen 
years he could boast, with a just pride, that he received the empire 
oppressed with foreign and domestic wars, and left it established in 
profound, universal, and honorable peace. In his last illness, Severus 
deeply felt and acknowledged the littleness of human greatness. Born 
in an African town, fortune and merit had elevated him from an 
humble station to the first place among mankind ; and now, satiated 
with power, and oppressed with age and infirmities, all his pros- 
pects in life were closed. " He had been all things," he said, " and 
all was of little value." Galling for the urn in which his ashes were 
to be inclosed, he thus moralized on his decaying greatness. " Little 
urn, thou shalt soon hold all that will remain of him whom the 
world could not contain." He died at York,^ in Britain, (A. D. 21 1,) 
having been called into that country to repress an insurrection of the 
Galedonians. 

1. Lyons, called by the Romans Lugdunum, is situated at the confluence of the rivers 
Rhone and Saone. The Roman town was at the foot of a hill on the western bank of the 
Rhone. Caesar conquered the place from the Gauls : Augustas made it the capital of a prov- 
ince ; and, being enlarged by succeeding emperors, it became one of the principal cities of the 
Roman world. It is now the principal manufacturing town of France, containing a population 
of about two hundred thousand inhabitants. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. York, called by the Romans Ebur' acum, is situated on the river Ouse, one hundred and 
seventy miles N. N. west from Loiidon. It was the capital of the Roman province, and next 
to London, the most important city in the island. It was successively the residence of Adrian, 
Severus, G6ta and Caracal' la, Constan' tins Chlorus, Con' stantine the Great, &c. The modern 
city can still show many vestiges of Roman power and magnificence. Constan' tins Chlorus, 
the father of Con' stantine the Great, died here. (Map No. XVI.) 

14 



210 MODERIf HISTORY. [Part II. 

22. Severus had left the empire to his two sons Caracal' la and 
X. CAR A- Greta, but the former, whose misconduct had imbittered 

cal' la. i]^Q last days of his father, soon after his accession slew 
his brother in his mother's arms. His character resembled that of 
Com' modus in cruelty, but his extortions were carried to a far 
greater extent. After the Koman world had endured his tyranny 
nearly six years, he was assassinated while in Syria, at the instiga- 

XI. MAORI'- tion of Macrinus, the captain of the guards, (A. D. 217,) 
Kus. -yjrho succeeded to the throne ; but after a reign of four- 
teen months, Macrinus lost his life in the struggle to retain his 
power. 

23. Bassianus, a youth of fourteen, and a cousin of Caracal' la, 
had been consecrated, according to the rites of the Syrian worship, 
to the ministry of high-priest of the sun ; and it was a rebellion of 
the Eastern troops in his favor that had overthrown the power of 
Macrinus. Although these events occurred in distant Syria, yet the 
Roman senate and the whole Roman world received with servile 

XII. ELAGA- submission the emperors whom the army successively 
ba' lus. offered them. As priest of the sun Bassianus adopted 

the title of Elagabalas,^ and on his arrival at Rome established 
there the Syrian worship, and compelled the grandest personages of 
the State and the army to officiate in the temple dedicated to the 
Syrian god. 

24. The follies, gross licentiousness, boundless prodigality, and 
cruelty of this pagan priest and emperor, soon disgusted even the 
licentious soldiery, the only support of his throne. He established 
a senate of women, the subject of whose deliberations were dress 
and etiquette ; he even copied the dress and manners of the female 
sex, and styling himself empress, publicly invested one of his officers 
with the title of husband. His grandmother Moe' sa, foreseeing that 
the Roman world would not long endure the yoke of so contemptible 
a monster, artfully persuaded him, in a favorable moment of fond- 
ness, to adopt for his successor his cousin Alexander Severus ; yet, 
soon after, Elagabalus, indignant that the affections of the army 
were bestowed upon another, meditated the destruction of Severus, 
but was himself massacred by the indignant Prsetorians, who dragged 
his mutilated corpse through the city, and threw it into the Tiber, 
while the senate publicly branded his name with infamy. (A. D. 222.) 

a. A name derived from two Syrian words, ela a god, and gabal to form : — signifying the 
forming, or plastic god,— a proper and even happy epithet for the sun,— Gibbon, i. 83. 



Chap. I] ROMAN- HISTORY. 211 

25. At the age of seventeen Alexander Severus was raised to the 
throne by the Pra3torian guards. He proved to be a ^^^^ ,^^^ 

* ^ Xlll. ALEX" 

wise, energetic, and virtuous prince : he relieved the ander se- 
provinces of the oppressive taxes imposed by his prede- ^^i^us. 
cessors, and restored the dignity, freedom, and authority of the 
senate; but his attempted reformation of the military order served 
only to inflame the ills it was meant to cure. His administration of 
the government was an unavailing struggle against the corruptions 
of the age ; and after many mutinies of his troops his life was at 
length sacrificed, after a reign of fourteen years, to the fierce discon- 
tents of the army, whose power had now increased to a height so 
dangerous as to obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty, and 
introduce the sway of military despotism. Max' imin, the instigator 
of the revolt, was proclaimed emperor. 



SECTION III. 

ROMAN HISTORY FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MILITARY DESPOTISM, AFTER THE 

MURDER OF ALEXANDER SEVE' RUS, A. D. 235, TO THE SUBVERSION OF THE 

WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, A. D. 416 =: 241 YEARS. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Earliest account of the Thracian Max' imin.— 2. His origin. His history 
down to the death of Alexander Sev6rus. [The Goths. Alani.] — 3. Max' imin proclaimed 
emperor by the army. Commencement of his reign. — 4. Gor' dian, Pupie' nus and Balbi'- 
Nus. Death of Max' imin. The Second Gor' dian. — 5. German and Persian wars. — 6, Sapor, 
the Persian king. Death of Gor' dian, and accession of Philip the Arabian.— 7. Insurrections 
and rebellions. De' cius proclaimed emperor, and death of Philip. [Verona.] — 8. War with 
the Goths, and death of Deciiis. Reign of Gallus Emilia' nus. Accession of Vale' rian. — 
9. Worthy character of Valerian. Ravages of tlie barbarians. Spain, Gaul, and Britain. 
The Persians. [The Franks. The Aleman' ni. Lombardy.]— 10. Valerian taken prisoner. 
His treatment. Gallie' nus. — 11. Odenatus, prince of Palmyra. He routs the Persians. 
[Palmyra.] — 12. Numerous competitors for the throne. — 13. Death of Gallienus, and accession 
of Claudius. [Milan.] — 14. Character, reign, and death of Claudius. [Sir' miura.]— 15. Quin- 
TiLius. — 16. The reign of Aure' lian. His wars. Zenobia. Character of Aur61ian. His 
death. [Tibur. Byzan' tium.] — 17. An interregnum. Election of Tacitus. His reign and 
deatli. [Bos'porus.] — 18. Flo' rian. The reign, and death, of Probus. [Sarmatia. Van'- 
dals.] — 19. Reign of Ca' rus. His character, and death. Nume' rian and Cari' nus. — 20. Su- 
perstition, and retreat, of the Roman army in Persia. Character of Carinus, and death of 
Num6rian. — 21. Carinus marches against Diocletian. His death. Diocle'tian acknowledged 
emperor. His treatment of the vanquished. 

22. The reign of Diocletian, an important epoch. [Copts and Abyssinians.]— 23. Division 
of the imperial authority.— 24. The rule of Maxim' ian. [Nicom6dia.] Of his colleague 
Constan' tius. Count4-ies ruled by Diocletian, and his colleague Gal6rius. — 25. Important 
events of the reign of Diocl6tian. The insurrection in Britain.— 26. Revolt in Egypt and 
northern Africa. [BuMris and Cop' los. Tlie Moors.]— 27. The war with Persia. [Antioch. 



21 a MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Kurdistan.]— 28. Persecution of the Christians. Diocletian's edict against them.— 29. Results, 
and effects of this persecution. — 30. Diocletian and Maxim' ian lay down the sceptre, and retire 
to private life. GALE'paus and Constan' tius acknowledged sovereigns. Discord and con- 
fusion. — 31. Death of Constan' tius. Con' stantine proclaimed emperor. Six competitors for 
the throne. Death of Gal(*rius.— 32. Conversion of Con' stantine, and triumph of Christianity. 
— 33. Most important events in the reign of Con' stantine. The choice of a new capital. — 34. 
Removal of the seat of government to Byzan' tium, and the changes that followed. Con' stan- 
tine divides the empire among his three sons and two nephews. His death. — 35. Sixteen years 
of Civil wars. Constan' tius II. becomes sole emperor. His reign of twenty-four years. His 
death. [The Saxons.] — 36. Julian the Apostate. His character. Hostility to the Christians. 
— 37. His efforts against Christianity. The result.— 38. His attempt to rebuild Jerusalem.— 39. 
Causes of the suspension of the work. — 40. Julian's invasion of Persia. His death. — 31. The 
brief reign of Jo' vian. — 42. Valentin' ian elected emperor. Associates his brother Va' lens 
with him. Final division of the empire. The two capitals. Rome. 

43. Barbarian inroads. Picts and Scots.— 44. Death of Valentin' ian, and westward pro- 
gress of the Huns. The Vis' igoths are allowed to settle in Thrace. — 45. The Os' trogoths cross 
the Danube in arms. The two divisions raise the standard of war. Death of Valens. 
[Adrianople.] — 40. Gra' tian emperor of the West. Theodo' sius emperor of the East. The 
Goths. Many of them settle in Thrace, Phrygia, &c. — 47. Death of Gratian. Valentin' ian 
II. His death. Theodosius sole emperor. Death of Theodosius. Division of the empire be- 
tween Hono' rius and Arca' dius. — 48. Civil wars. Al' aric the Goth ravages Greece, and 
then passes into Italy. [Julian Alps.]— 49. Honorius is relieved by Stil' icho. [As' ta Pollen '- 
tia.] Rome saved by Stil' icho. — 50. Raven' na becomes the capital of Italy. Deluge of bar- 
barians. [Raven' na. Van' dais. Suevi. Burgim' dians.] — 51. Italy delivered by Stil' icho. 
[Florence.]— 52. Stil' icho put to death. RTassacre of the Goths, and revolt of the Gothic 
soldiers. — 53. Rome besieged by Al' aric. His terms of ransom. — 54. The terms finally agreed 
upon. Rejected by Honorius. [Tuscany.] Al' aric returns and reduces Rome.— 55. Pillage 
of Rome. Al' aric abandons Rome. His death and burial.— 56. The Goths withdraw froni 
Italy. The Vis' igoths in Spain and Gaul. Saxons establish themselves in England.— 57. The 
Van' dais in Spain and Africa. Valentin' ian III. Conquests of At'tila. [Andalusia. 
The Iluns. Chalons. Venetian Republic.]— 58. Extinction of the empire of the Huns. Situ- 
ation of the Roman world at this period. Rome pillaged by the Van' dals, A. D. 455.-59. 
Avi' Tus. Majo' rian. — 60. Seve' Rus. Van' dal invasions. Expedition against Carthage. — 61. 
Revolutionary changes. Demands of the barbarians, and subversion of the Western 
Empire. [Her' uli.] 

1. ' Thirty-two years before the murder of Alexander Severus, 
the emperor Septim' ius Severus, returning from his Asiatic expe- 
dition, halted in Thrace to celebrate with military games the birth- 
day of his younger son Greta. Among the crowd that flocked to 
behold their sovereign was a young barbarian of gigantic stature, 
who earnestly solicited, in his rude dialect, that he might be allowed 
to contend for the prize of wrestling. As the pride of 
discipline would have been disgraced in the overthrow of 
a Roman soldier by a Thracian peasant, he was matched with 'the 
stoutest followers of the camp, sixteen of whom he successively laid 
on the ground. His victory was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and 
a permission to enlist in the troops. The next day the happy bar- 
barian was distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and ex- 
ulting after the fashion of his country. As soon as as he perceived 
that he had attracted the emperor's notice, he ran up to his horse, 



Chap. I] KOMAN HISTORY. 213 

and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of fatigue, in 
a long and rapid career. " Thracian," said Severus, with astonish- 
ment, " art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race ?" " Most wil- 
lingly, sir," replied the unwearied youth, and almost in a breadth 
overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the army. A gold collar 
was the prize of his matchless vigor and activity, and he was imme- 
diately appointed to serve in the horse-guards, who always attended 
on the person of the sovereign.'^ 

2. Max'imin, for that was the name of the Thracian, was de- 
scended from a mixed race of barbarians, — his father being a Goth,^ 
and his mother of the nation of the Alani.^ Under the reign of the 
first Severus and his son Caracal' la he held the rank of centurion ; 
but he declined to serve under Macrinus and Elagabalus. On the ac- 
cession of Alexander he returned to court, and was promoted to vari- 
ous military offices honorable to himself and useful to the nation, 
but, elated by the applause of the soldiers, who bestowed on him the 
names of Ajax and Hercules, and prompted by ambition, he con- 
spired against his benefactor, and excited that mutiny in which the 
latter lost his life. 

3. Declaring himself the friend and advocate of the military order, 

1. The Goths, a powerful northern nation, who acted an important part in the overthrow of 
the Roman empire, were probably a Scythian tribe, and came originally from Asia, whence 
they passed north into Scandinavia. W^hen first known to the Romans, a large division of 
their nation lived on tiie northern shores of the Euxine. About the middle of the third 
century of our era they crossed the Dnies' ter, and devastated Dacia and Thrace. The emperor 
Decius lost his life in opposing them ; after which his successor Gal' lus induced them by 
money, to withdraw to their old seats on the Dnies' ter. (See p. 215.) Soon after this period 
the Goths appear in two grand divisions; — the Os' trogoths, or Eastern Goths, passing the 
Euxine into Asia Minor, and ravaging Bythin' ia ; — and the Vis' igoths, or Western Goths, 
gradually pressing upon the Roman provinces along the Danube. About the year 375, the 
Huns, coming from the East, fell upon the Os' trogoths, and drove them upon the Vis' igoths, 
who were then living north of the Danube. A vast multitude of the latter were permitted by 
the emperor Valens to settle in Mce' sia, and on the waste lauds of Thrace ; but being soon after 
joined by their Eastern brethren, they raised the standard of war, carried their ravages to the very 
gates of Constantinople, and killed Valens in battle. (See p. 228.) It was AV aric, king of the 
Vis' igoths, who plundered Rome in the beginning of the fifth century. (See p. 231.) The Vis' i- 
goths afterwards passed into Spain, where they founded a dynasty which reigued nearly three 
centuries, and was finally conquered by the Moors, A. D. 711. In the meantime the Os' trogoths 
had been following in the path of their brethren, and in the year 493 their great king Theod' oric 
defeated Odoacer, and seated himself on the throne of Italy. (See p. 239.) The Gothic kingdom 
lasted only till the year .554, wlien it was overthrown by Nar' ses, the general of Justin' iaii. 
(See p. 241.) From this period the Goths no longer occupy a prominent place in history, 
except in Spain. 

2. The Aldni, likewise a Scythian race, when first known occupied the country between the 
Volga and the Don. Being conquered, eventually, by the Huns, most of the Alans united 
with their conquerors, and proceeded with them to invade the limits of the Gothic empire of 
Italy. 

a. (.'ibbon, i. 96. 



214 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

Max' imin was unanimously proclaimed emperor by the applauding 
legions, who, now composed mostly of peasants and barbarians of 
the frontiers, knowing no country but their camp, and no science but 
that of war, and discarding the authority of the senate, looked upon 
themselves as the sole depositaries of power, as they were, in reality, 
the real masters of the Roman world. Max' imin commenced his 
reign by a sanguinary butchery of the friends of the late monarch ; 
but his avarice and cruelty soon provoked a civil war, and raised up 
against him several competitors for the throne. 

4. At first the aged and virtuous Gror'dian, pro-consul of Africa, 

was declared sovereign by the legions in that part of the 
Roman world, but he persisted in refusing the dangerous 
honor until menaces compelled him to accept the imperial title. At 
Rome the news of his election was received with universal joy, and 
confirmed by the senate; but two months after his accession he 
perished in a struggle with the Roman governor of Mauritania, who 
still adhered to Max' imin. Two senators of consular dignity, Pu- 
pupiE- pi^^^^^j (sometimes called Max' imus) and Balbinus, were 
Nus AND then declared emperors by the senate ; and soon after, 
BALBi' NUS. ]yj^^/ imin^ while on his march from Pannonia to Rome, 
was slain in his tent by his own guards. (A. D. 238.) Only a few 
IV. SECOND days later both Pupienus and Balbinus were slain in 
gor'dian. a mutiny of the troops. The youthful Gor' dian, grand- 
son of the former Gor' dian, was then declared emperor. 

5. During these rapid changes in the sovereignty of the Roman 
world, the empire was involved in numerous foreign wars, which 
gradually wasted its strength and resources, and hastened its down- 
fall. On the north, the. German nations, and other barbarian tribes, 
almost constantly harassed the frontier provinces ; while in the east 
the Persians, after overthrowing the Parthian empire, and establish- 
ing the second or later Persian empire under the dynasty of the 
Sassan' idae, (A. D. 226,) commenced a long series of destructive 
wars against the Romans, vfitli the constant object of driving the 
latter from Asia. 

6. At the time of the accession of the second Gor' dian to the 
sovereignty of the Roman empire. Sapor, the second prince of the 
Sas' sanid dynasty, was driving the Romans from several of their 
Asiatic provinces. The efforts of Gor' dian, who went in person to 
protect the provinces of Syria, were partially successful ; but while 



VI, DECIUS. 



Chap. L] llOMAN HISTORY. 215 

the 3^outliful conqueror was pursuing liis advantages, he was supplanted 
in the affections of his army by Philip the Arabian, the ^ philip 
prefect or commander of the Pr^torian guards, who caused the 
his monarch and benefactor to be slain, (A. D. 244.) ^^^^ian. 

7. It is not surprising that the generals of Philip were disposed 
to imitate the example of their master, and that insurrections and 
rebellions were frequent during his reign. At length a rebellion 
having broken out in Pannonia, Decius was sent to sup- 
press it, when he himself was proclaimed emperor by 
the fickle troops, and compelled, by the threat of instant death, to 
submit to their dictation. Philip immediately marched against De- 
cius, but was defeated and slain near Verona.^ (A. D. 249.) 

8. Several monarchs now succeeded each other in rapid succession. 
Decius soon fell in battle with the Goths, (A. D. 251,) large num- 
bers of whom during his reign first crossed the Danube, and deso- 
lated the Roman provinces in that quarter. Gal' lus, a yii. gal'- 
general of Decius, being raised to the throne, concluded ^u^- 

a dishonorable peace with the barbarians, and renewed a violent per- 
secution of the Christians, which had been commenced by Decius 
As new swarms of the barbarians crossed the Danube, the pusillani 
mous emperor seemed about to abandon the defence of yni. ^mih- 
the monarchy, when ^milianus, governor of Pannonia a'nus. 
and Moe' sia, unexpectedly attacked the enemy and drove them back 
into their own territories. His troops, elated by the victory, pro- 
claimed their general emperor on the field of battle ; and Gal' lus 
was soon after slain by his own soldiers. In three months ix. vale- 
a similar fate befel ^milianus, when Valerian, governor ^^^^n. 
of Gaul, then about sixty years of age, a man of learning, wisdom, 
and virtue, was advanced to the sovereignty, not by the clamors of 
the army only, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman world. 

9. Valerian possessed abilities that might have rendered his admin 
istration happy and illustrious, had he lived in times more peaceful, 
and more favorable for the display and appreciation of virtue ; but 
his reign had not only a most deplorable end, but was marked, -through- 
out, with nothing but confusion and calamities. At this time the 
Goths, w^ho had already formed a powerful nation on the lower Dan- 

1. Verdna., a large and flourishing Roman city of Cisalpine Gaul, still retains its ancient name. 
It is situated on both sides of the river Adige, sixty-four miles west from Venice. The great glory 
of Verona is its amphitheatre, one of the noblest existing monuments of the ancient Romans, 
and, excepting the Coloss6um at Rome, the largest extant edifice of its class. It is supposed 
to have been capable of accommodating twenty thousand spectators. {Map No. XVII.) 



216 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ube and the nortliern coasts of the Black Sea, ravaged the Roman do- 
minions on their borders, and penetrating into the interior of Greece, 
or Achaia, destroyed Ar' gos, Corinth, and Athens, by fire and by 
the sword : the Franks,^ who had formed a kingdom on the lower 
Rhine, began to be formidable : the Aleman' ni° broke through their 
bomidaries, and advanced into the plains of Lom' bardy' : Spain, 
G-aul, and Britain, were virtually torn away from the empire, and 
governed by independent chiefs ; while in the East, the Persians, 
under their monarch Sapor, fell like a mountain torrent upon Syria 
and Cappadocia, and almost effaced the Roman power from Asia. 

10. Valerian in person led the Roman army against the Persians, 
but, penetrating beyond the Euphrates, he was surrounded and taken 
prisoner by Sapor, who is accused of treating his royal captive with . 
wanton and unrelenting cruelty, — using him as a stepping-stone when 
lie mounted on horseback, and at last causing him, after nine years- 
of captivity, to be flayed alive, and his skin to be stuffed in the form 

X GALLiE- ^^ *^^ living emperor — dyed in scarlet in mockery of 
Nus. his imperial dignity, and preserved as a trophy in a 
temple of Persia. Gallienus, the unworthy son of Valerian, receiv- 
ing the news of his father's captivity with secret joy and open in- 
difference, immediately succeeded to the throne. (A. D. 259.) 

11. At the time when nearly every Roman town in Asia had sub- 
mitted to Sapor, Odenatus, prince of Palmyra,* who was attached 

1. The F7-anks, or " Freemen," were a confederation of the rudest of the Germanic tribes, 
and were first known to the Romans as inhabiting tlie numerous islets formed by the mouth of 
the Rhine ; but they afterwards crossed into Gaul, and, in the latter part of ihe fifth century, 
under their leader Clovis, laid the foundation of the French monarchy. (See also p. 255.) 

2. The Pieman' ni, or " all men," that is, men of all tribes, were also a German confederacy, 
situated on the northern borders of Switzerland. They were finally overthrown by Clovis, after 
which they were dispersed over Gaul, Switzerland, and northern Italy. 

3. Lom' bardij embraced most of the great plain of northern Italy watered by the Po and its 
tributaries. 

4. Palmyra, "The ancient "Tadmor in the wilderness" built by king Solomon, (2. Chron. 
viii. 4,) was situated in an oasis of the Syrian desert, about one hundred and forty miles 
north-east from Damascus. The first notice we have of it in Roman history is at the com- 
mencement of the wars with the Parthians, when it was permitted to maintain a state of inde- 
pendence and neutrality between the contending parties. Being on the caravan route from tho 
coast of Syria to the regions of Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, it was long the principal em- 

' porium of commerce between the Eastern and Western worlds — a city of merchants and fac- 
tors, whose wealth is stiU attested by the number and magnificence of its ruins. After tho 
victories of Trajan had established the unquestionable preponderance of the Roman arms, it 
became allied to the empire as a free State, and was greatly favored by Adrian and the Anto- 
nines, during whose reigns it attained its greatest splendor. Odenatus maintained its glory, 
and for his defeat of the Persians the Roman senate conferred on him the title of Augustus, 
and associated him with Gallienus in the empire ; but his queen and successor, the 
famous Zenobia, broke the alliance with the imbecile Gallienus, annexed Egypt to her do- 



Chap. I.] ROMAJ!^ HISTORY. 217 

to the Roman interest, desirous at least to secure the forbearance of 
the conqueror, sent Sapor a magnificent present of camels and mer- 
chandise, accompanied with a respectful, but not servile, epistle ; but 
the haughty monarch ordered the gifts to be thrown into the Euphra- 
tes, and returned for an answer that if Odenatus hoped to mitigate 
his punishments he must prostrate himself before the throne of 
Sapor with his hands tied behind his back. The Palmyrean prince, 
reading his fate in the angry message of Sapor, resolved to meet the 
Persian in arms. Hastily collecting a little army from the villages 
of Syria, and the tents of the desert, he fell upon and routed the 
Persian host, seized the camp, the women, and the treasures of Sa- 
por, and in a short time restored to the Romans most of the prov- 
inces of which they had been despoiled. 

12. The indolence and inconstancy of Grallienus soon raised up a 
host of competitors for the throne, generally reckoned thirty in all, 
although the number of actual pretenders did not exceed nineteen. 
Among these was Odenatus the Palmyrean, to whom the Roman 
vsenate had intrusted the command of the Eastern provinces, after 
associating him with Grallienus. Of all these competitors, several 
of whom were models of virtue, two only were of noble birth, and 
not one enjoyed a life of peace, or died a natural death. As one 
after another was cut off by the arms of a rival, or by domestic 
treachery, armies and provinces were involved in their fall. During 
the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the contentions of 
the imperial rivals, and the arms of barbarians, brought the empire 
to the very brink of ruin. 

13. Gallienus, after a reign of nine years, was murdered while he 
was besieging one of his rivals in Mediolanum ;^ (Milan, 
A. D. 268 ;) but before his death he had appointed Mar- 
cus Aurelius Claudius, a general of great reputation, to succeed him, 
and the choice was confirmed by the joyful acclamations of the army 
and the people. 

minions, and assumed the title of "Augusta, Queen of tlie East." The emperor Aurelian 
marched against the ill-fated Palmyra with an irresistible force ; the walls of the city were 
razed to the ground ; and the seat of commerce, of arts, and of Zcnobia, gradually sunk into 
an obscure town, a trifling fortress, and, at length, a miserable Arab village. 

1. Medioldjium, now Milan, was a city of Cisalpine Gaul, one hundred and fifty miles west 
from Venice, situated in a beautiful plain between two small streams the Olona and Eanibra, 
which unite at San Angelo and form a northern tributary of the Po. Mediolanum was an- 
nexed to the Roman dominions by Scipio Nasica, 191 B. C, A good specimen of ancient Ro- 
man architecture may still be seen at Milan, being a range of sixteen beautiful Corinthian 
columns, with their architrave, before the church at San Lorenzo. (Map No. VIII.) 



218 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

14. A succession of better princes now restored for awhile the de- 
caying energies of the empire. Claudius merited the confidence 
which had been placed in his wisdom, valor, and virtue; and his 
early death was a great misfortune to the Ptoman world. After 
having overthrown and nearly destroyed an army of three hundred 
and twenty thousand Goths and Van' dais, who had invaded the em- 
pire by the way of the Bos' porus, Claudius was cut off by a pesti- 
lence at Sir' mium,^ as he was making preparations to march against 
the famous Zenobia, the '' Queen of the Ea-st," and the widow and 
.successor of Odenatus. 

15. Quintirius, the brother of Claudius, was proclaimed emperor 
XII. QuiN- ^y ^^^ acclamations of the troops ; but when he learned 

til' ius. that the great army of the Danube had invested Aurelian 
with imperial power, he sunk into despair, and terminated his life 
after a reign of seventeen days. 

16. The reign of Aurelian, which lasted only four 3^ears and nine 
XIII. AURE- months, was filled with memorable achievements. After 

^^^^- a bloody conflict, he put an end, by treaty, to the Gothic 
war of twenty years' duration; he chastised and drove back the 
Aleman'ni, who had traced a line of devastation from the Danube 
to the Po ; he recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain ; and passing into 
Asia at the head of a large army, he destroyed the proud monarchy 
which Zenobia had erected there, and led that unfortunate, but heroic 
princess, captive to Rome. Being presented with an elegant villa 
at Tibur,'^ the Syrian queen insensibly sunk into a Boman matron, 
and her daughters married into the noblest families of the empire. 
With great courage and superior military talents, Aurelian possessed 
many private virtues ; but their influence was impaired by the stern- 
ness and severity of his character. He fell in a conspiracy of his 
officers near B3''zan' tium,^ while preparing to carry on a war with 
Persia. (A. D. March, 275.) 

1. Sir' miumyvas an important city in the south-eastern part of Pannonia, on the northern 
side of the river Save. Its ruins may be seen near the town of Mitrovitz, in Austrian Slavonia. 

2. Tibur, now Tivolt, (tee-vo-le) was situated at the cascades of the A' nio, now the Tever- 
6ne, eighteen miles nortlx-east from Rome. Its ancient inhabitants were called the Tihurtini. 
The declivities in the vicinity of Tibur were anciently interspersed with splendid villas, the 
favorite residences of the refined and luxurious citizens of Home, among which may be men- 
tioned those of Sallust, fthecenas, Tibul'lus, Varus, At' ticus, Cassius, Brutus, &c. Here Virgil 
and Horace elaborated their immortal worlcs. Although the temples and theatres of ancient 
Tibur have crumbled into dust, its orchards, its gardens, and its cool recesses, still bloom and 
flourish in unfading beauty. {Map No. X.) 

3. Byzaii' tium, now Constantinople, a celebrated city of Thrace on the western shore of the 
Thracian Bos' porus, is supposed to have been founded by a Dorian colony from Meg' ara, led 



XI 7. TACITUS. 



Chap. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 219 

17. On the death of Aiirelian, a generous and unlooked-for dis- 
interestedness was exhibited by the army, which modestly referred 
the appointment of a successor to the senate. For six months the 
senate persisted in declining an honor it had so long been unaccus- 
tomed to enjoy ; and during this period the Roman world remained 
without a sovereign, without a usurper, and without a sedition. At 
length the senate yielded to the continual request of the 
legions, and elected to the imperial dignity Marcus 
Claudius Tacitus, a wealthy and virtuous senator, who had already 
passed his seventy-fifth year. Tacitus, after enacting some wise 
laws, and restoring to the senate its ancient privileges, proceeded to 
join the army, which had remained assembled on the Bos'porus^ for 
the invasion of Persia ; but the hardships of a military life, a,nd the 
cares of government, proved too much for his constitution, and he 
died in Cappadocia, after a reign of little more than six months. 
(A. D. Sept., 275.) 

18. Florian, a brother of Tacitus, showed himself unworthy to 
reign, by assuming the government without even con- xv. flo'- 
sulting the senate. His own soldiers soon after put him i^ian. 

to death, while in the meantime the Syrian army proclaimed their 
leader, Probus, emperor. The latter proved to be an xvi. pro'- 
excellent sovereign and a great general ; and in the wars bus. 
which he carried on with the Franks, Aleman'ui, Sarmatians,^ Groths, 
and Van' dais,' he gained greater advantages than any of his prede- 
cessors. In the several battles which he fouglit, four hundred thou- 
sand of the barbarians fell ; and seventy cities opened their gates to 

by Byzas a Tliracian prince, about the middle of the seventh century before the Christian era. 
It was destroyed by the Persians in the reign of Darius : it resisted successfully the arms of 
Philip of Mac' edon : during the reign of Philip 11. it placed itself under Roman sway : it was 
destroyed, and afterwards rebuilt, by Septim' ius Severus ; and in the year 328 A. D., Con' stan- 
tine made it the capital of the Roman empire. On the subjugation of the western empire by 
the barbarians, A. D. 476, it continued to be the capital of the eastern empire. It was taken 
by the crusaders in the year 1204 ; and in 1453 it fell into the hands of the Turks, when the 
hist remnant of the Roman empire was finally suppressed. {Map No. III.) 

1. The Bos' poras., (corrupted by modern orthography to Bos'phorus,) is the strait which 
connects the Euxinc or Black Sen, with the Propon' tis or Sea of Marmora. The length of this 
remarkable channel is about seventeeen miles, with a width varying from lialf a mile to two 
miles. (Map No. VII.) 

2. Ancient Sarmdtia extended from tlie Baltic Sea and the Vis' tula to the Caspian Sea and the 
Volga. European Sarmatia embraced Poland, Lithuania, Prussia, and a part of Russia. 
Asiatic Sarmatia comprised the country between the Caspian Sea and the river Don. 

3. The Van' <Ja's were a people of Germany, and are supposed to have been of Gothic origin. 
Tliey formed one of the three divisions of the great Slavonian race ; — viz., Vandals, An' tes, 
and Slavonians proper. The Slavonian language is the stem from which have issued the 
Russian, Polish, Bohemian, &c. 



220 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

him. After he had secured a general peace by his victories, he era- 
ployed his armies in useful public works ; but the soldiers disdained 
such employment, and while they were engaged in draining a marsh 
near Sir' mium, in the hot days of summer, they broke out into a 
furious mutiny, and in their sudden rage slew their emperor. (A. B. 
282.) 

19. The legions next raised Carus, prefect of the Praetorian 
XVII. guards, to the throne. He was full of warlike ambition, 

ca' rus. and the desire of military glory, and seems to have held 
a middle rank between good and bad princes. He signalized the 
beginning of his reign by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians in 
Blyr' icum, sixteen thousand of whom he slew in battle. He then 
marched against Persia, and had already carried his victorious arms 
beyond the Tigris, when he was killed in his tent, as was 
NUMERiAN generally believed by lightning. (A. D. 283.) Nume- 
™ rian, one of the sons of Carus, who had accompanied his 
father in his eastern expedition, and Carinus his elder 
brother, who had been left to govern Rome, were immediately ac- 
knowledged emperors by the troops. 

20. On the death of Carus, the eastern army, superstitiously re- 
garding places or persons struck by lightning as singularly devoted 
to the wrath of heaven, refused to advance any farther; and the Per- 
sians beheld with wonder the unexpected retreat of a victorious 
army. — 'While Carinus remained at Rome, immersed in pleasures, 
and acting the part of a second Com' modus, the virtuous Numerian 
perished by assassination. The army of the latter then chose for 
his successor Diocletian, the commander of the domestic body guards 
of the late emperor. (A. D. Dec, 285.) 

21. Carinus, being determined to dispute the succession, marched 
with a large army against Diocletian, whom he was on the point of 
defeating in a desperate battle on the plains of Margus, a small city 
of Moc' sia, when he was slain by one of his own officers in revenge 
for some private wrong. The army of Carinus then acknowledged 

XIX. DiocLE- Diocletian as emperor. He used his victory with mild- 
TiAN, ness, and, contrary to the common practice, respected 
the lives and fortunes of his late adversaries, and even continued in 
their stations many of the officers of Carinus. 

22. The reign of Diocletian is an important epoch in Roman 
history, as it was one of long duration and general prosperity, and is 



Chap. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 221 

the beginning of the division of the Roman world into the Eastern 
and Western eniioire. The accession of Diocletian also marks a new 
chronological era, called the " era of Diocletian," or, " the era of 
martyrs," which was long recognized in the Christian church, and is 
still used by the Copts and Abyssinians.^ 

23. The natural tendency of the eastern parts of the empire to 
become separated from the western, together with the difficulties of 
ruling singly over so many provinces of different nations and diverse 
interests, led Diocletian to form the plan of dividing the imperial 
authority, and governing the empire from two centres, although the 
whole was still to remain one. He therefore first took as a colleague 
his friend and fellow soldier Maxim' ian ; but still the weight of the 
public administration appearing too heavy, the two sovereigns took 
each a subordinate colleague, to whose name the title of Caesar was 
prefixed. 

24. Maxim' ian made Milan his capital, while Diocletian held his 
court at Nicomedia,'^ in Asia Minor. Maxim' ian ruled ^x. maxim'- 
over Italy and Africa proper ; while his subordinate col- ^an. 
league, Constan' tins, administered the government of Graul, Spain, 
Britain, and Mauritania. Diocletian reserved, for his personal su- 
pervision, nearly all the empire east of the Adriat' ic, except Panno- 
nia and Moe' sia, which he conferred upon his subordinate colleague 
Galerius. Each of the four rulers was sovereign within his own 
jurisdiction ; but each was prepared to assist his colleagues with 
counsel and with arms; while Diocletian was regarded as the father 
and head of the empire. 

25. The most important events of the reign of Diocletian were 
the insurrection of Caraiisius in Britain, a revolt in Egypt and 
throughout north'ern Africa, the war against the Persians, and a long- 
continued persecution of the Christians. During seven years, Caraii- 
sius, the commander of the northern Boman fleet, ruled over Britain, 
and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules the terror of his name. 
He was murdered by his first minister Alec' tus ; but the latter, 
soon after, was defeated and slain in battle by Constan' tins ; and 
after a separation of ten years, Britain was reunited with the empire. 

26. The suppression of a formidable revolt in Egypt was accom- 

1. The Copts are Christians— descendants of the ancient Egyptians, as distingnished from tho 
Arabians and other inhabitants of modern Egypt. The Abijssinians, inhabitants of Abyssinia, 
in eastern Africa, profess Christianity, but it has little inflnenco over their conduct. 

2. JVicomedia was in Bithyn'ia, at the eastern extremity of the Propou' tis, or Sea of Mar- 
mora. The modern Is-Mid occupies the site of the ancient city. 



222 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

plishecl by Diocletian himself, who took a terrible vengeance upon 
Alexandria, and utterly destroyed the proud cities of Busiris and 
Cop' tos.^ In the meantime a confederacy of five Moorish'^ nations 
attacked all the lloman provinces of Africa, from the Nile westward 
to Mount Atlas, but the barbarians were vanquished by the arms of 
Maxim' ian. 

27. Next commenced the war with Persia, which was carried on 
by Gralerius, although Diocletian, taking his station at An' tioch,'^ pre- 
pared and directed the military operations. In the first campaign 
the lloman army received a total overthrow on the very ground 
rendered memorable by the defeat and death of Crassus. In a second 
campaign Gralerius gained a complete victory by a night attack ; and 
by the peace which followed, the eastern boundary of the Koman 
world was extended beyond the Tigris, so as to embrace the greater 
part of Cardi'ichia, the modern Kurdistan'.' 

28. The triumphs of Diocletian are sullied by a general perse- 
cution of the Christians (the tenth and last), which he is said to 
have commenced at the instigation of Galerius, aided by the artifices 
of the priesthood. (A. D. 303.) The famous edict of Diocletian 
against the Christians excluded them from all ofiices, ordered their 
churches to be pulled down, and their sacred books to be burned, and 
led to a general and indiscriminate massacre of all such as professed 
the name of Jesus. 



1. Four cities of Egypt bore the name of Busiris. The one destroyed by Diocletian was in 
the Thebais, or southern Egypt,— generally called Upper Egypt. Cop' tns was likewise in 
Upper Eg3"pt, east of the Nile. Its favorable situation for commerce caused it again to arise 
after its destruction by Diocl6tian. 

2. The Moors, whose name is derived from a Greek word (Jilauros) signifying "dark," "ob- 
scure," are natives of the northern coast of Africa, or, more properly, of the Roman JMauri- 
t&nia. The Moors were originally froin Asia, and are a people distinct from the native Arabs, 
Berbers, &c. The modern Moors are descendants of the ancient Mauritanians, intermixed 
with their Arab conquerors, and with the remains of the Van' dais who once ruled over the 
country. 

3. An' tioch, once eminent for its beauty and greatness, was situated in northern Syria, on 
the left bank of the Oron' tes, (now the Aaszy,) twenty miles from its entrance into the Medi- 
terranean. An' tioch was the capital of the Macedonian kingdom of Syria ; and about the 
year C5 B. C. the conquests of Pompey brought it, with the whole of Syria, under the control 
of the Romans. It was long the centre of an extensive commerce, the residence of the gov- 
ernor of Syria, the frequent resort of tlie Roman emperors, and, next to Rome, the most cele- 
brated city of the empire for the amusements of the circus and the theatre. Paul and Barnabas 
planted there the doctrines of Christianity; and "the disciples were called Cliristians first in 
An' tioch." — Acts, xi. 26. (Map No. VII.) 

4. Kurdistan', comprised chiefly within the basin of the Tigris, is claimed partly by Turkey 
and partly by Persia. It is the country of the Kurds, in whose character the love of theft and 
brigandage is a marked feature; but, at the same time, when visited by travellers they exercise 
the most generous lios])itality, and often force handsome presents on their departing gwests. 



CONSTAN - 
TIUS. 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 223 

29. During ten years the persecution continued with scarcely miti- 
gated horrors ; and such multitudes of Christians suffered death that 
at last the imperial murderers boasted that they had extinguished 
the Christian name and religion, and restored the worship of the 
gods to its former purity and splendor. In spite, however, of the 
efforts of tyranny, the Christian Church survived, and in a few years 
reigned triumphant in the very metropolis of heathen idolatrj^ 

30. After a reign of twenty years, Diocletian, in the presence of 
a large concourse of citizens and soldiers who had assembled at 

i-Nicomedia to witness the spectacle, voluntarily laid down the sceptre, 
and retired to private life ; and on the same day Maxim' ian, accord- 
ing to previous agreement, performed a similar ceremony 
at Milan. (May 1st, 305.) Galerius and Constan' tins mus and 
were thereupon acknowledged sovereigns ; and two sub- 
ordinates, or Caesars, were appointed to complete the 
system of imperial government which Diocletian had established. 
But this balance-of-power system needed the firm and dexterous 
hand of its founder to sustain it ; and the abdication of Diocletian 
was followed by eighteen years of discord and confusion. 

31. One year after the abdication of the sovereigns, Constan' tius 
died at York, in Britain, when his soldiers proclaimed his son Con'- 
stantine emperor. In a short time the empire was divid- ^xn, con'- 
ed between six sovereigns ; but Con' stantine lived to stantine. 
see them destroyed in various ways ; and, eighteen years after his 
accession, having overcome in battle Licin' ius, the last of his rivals, 
he was thus left sole master of the Roman world, whose dominions 
extended from the wall of Scotland to Kurdistan', and from the Red 
Sea to Mount Atlas in Africa. Galerius had already died of a 
loathsome disease, which was considered by many as a punishment from 
Heaven for his persecution of the Christians. 

32. Con' stantine has been styled the first Christian emperor. 
During one of his campaigns (A. D. 312) he is said to have seen a 
miraculous vision of a luminous cross in the Heavens, on which was 
inscribed the following words in Greek, " By this conquer.'''* Certain 
it is that from this period Con' stantine showed the Christians marks 
of positive favor, and caused the cross to be employed as the imperial 
standard : in his last battle with Licin' ius it was the emblem of the 
cross that was opjoosed to the symbols of paganism ; and as the latter 
went down in a night of blood, the triumph of Christianity over the 
Roman world was deemed complete. 



^^4 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

33. The most important events in the reign of Con' stantine, after 
he had restored the outward imity of the empire, were his wars with 
the Sarmatiaus and Goths, whom he severely chastised ; his domestic 
difficulties, in which he showed little of the character of a Christian ; 
and the establishment, at Bjzan'tium, of the new capital of the Ro- 
man empire; afterwards called Constantinople^ from its founder. 
The motives which led Con' stantine to the choice of a new capital, 
on a spot which seemed formed by nature to be the metro]3olis of a 
great empire, were those of policy and interest, mingled with feel- 
ings of revenge for insults which he had received at Rome, where 
he was execrated for abandoning the religion of his forefathers. 

34. The removal of the seat of government was followed by an 
entire change in the forms of civil and military administration. The 
military despotism of the former emjjcrors now gave place to the 
despotism of a court, surrounded by all the forms and ceremonies, 
the pride, pomp, and circumstances, of Eastern greatness : all mag- 
istrates were accurately divided into new classes, and a uniform sys- 
tem of taxation was established, although the amount of tribute was 
imposed by the absolute authority of the monarch. Finally Con'- 
stantine, as he approached the end of his life, went back to the sys- 
tem of Diocletian, and divided the empire among his three sons 
Con' stantine, Constan' tins, and Con' stans, and his two nephews, 
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. After a reign of thirty-one years 
Con' stantme the First died at Nicomedia, at the age of sixty-three 
years. (A. D. 337.) 

35. The division of sovereign power among so many rulers in- 
volved the empire in frequent insurrections and civil wars, until, 

xxin. cox- sixteen years from the death of Con' stantine, Constan'- 
stan'tius II. ^i^g^ Q^. Constan' tins II., after having seen all his rivals 
overcome, and several usurpers vanquished, was left in the sole pos- 
session of the empire. During his reign of twenty-four years he 
was engaged in frequent wars with the Franks, Saxons,^ Aleman' ni, 
and Sarmatians, while the Persians continued to harass the Eastern 

1. The Saxons were a people of Germany, whose original seats appear to have been on the 
neck of the Cimbric peninsula, (now Denmark,) between (he Elbe and the Baltic, and embrac- 
ing the present Sleswick and Holstein. (Map No. XVII.) The early Saxons were a nation of 
fishermen and pirates ; and it appears that afier they had extended their depredations to the 
coasts of Britain and eastern and southern Gaul, numerous auxiliaries from the shores of the 
Baltic joined them, and, gradually coalescing with them into a national body, accepted the name 
and the laws of the Saxons. In the early part of the fifth century, the Saxons were converted 
to Christianity by the Roman missionaries ; and half a century later they had obtained a per- 
maneht establishment in Britain. 



Chap. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 225 

provinces. While Constan' tins was sustaining a doubtful war in 
the East, his cousin Julian, whom he had appointed to the command 
of the Western provinces, with the title of Cagsar, was proclaimed 
emperor bj his victorious legions in Gaul. Preparations for civil 
war were made on both sides ; but the Roman world was saved from 
the calamities of the struggle by the sudden death of Constan' tins. 
(A. D. 361.) 

36. Julian, commonly called the Apostate, on account of his relaps- 
ing from Christianity into paganism, possessed many ami- ^^^^^ 
able and shining qualities, and his application to business ju' lian the 
was intense. He reformed numerous abuses of his prede- ^^*^^'^^™- 
cesser, but, in the great object of his ambition, the restoration of 
ancient paganism, although he had issued an edict of universal toler- 
ation, he showed a marked hostility to the Christians, subjecting 
them to many disabilities and humiliations, and allowing their ene- 
mies to treat them with excessive rigor. 

37. Trained in the most celebrated schools of Grecian philosophy at 
Athens, Julian was an able writer and an artful sophist, and, employ- 
ing the weapons of argument and ridicule against the Christians, he 
strenuously labored to degrade Christianity, and bring contempt upon 
its followers. In this effort he was partially successful ; but ere 
long the sophisms of the " apostate emperor" were ably refuted by 
St. Cyril and others, and the result of the controversy was highly 
favorable to the increase and spread of the new religion. 

38. Not relying upon the weapons of argument and ridicule alone, 
Jdlian aimed what he thought would be a deadly blow to Christi- 
anity, by ordering the temple of Jerusalem to be rebuilt, hoping 
thus to falsify the language of prophecy and the truth of Revela- 
tion. But although the Jews were invited from all the provinces of 
the empire to assemble once more on the holy mountain of their 
fathers, and every effort was made to secure the success of the under- 
taking, both by the emperor and the Jews themselves, the work did 
not prosper, and was finally abandoned in despair. 

39. Most writers, both Christians and pagans, declare that the 
work was frustrated in consequence of balls of fire that burst from 
the earth and alarmed the workmen who were employed in digging 
the foundations. Whether these phenomena, so gravely and abun- 
dantly attested, were supernatural or otherwise, does not affect the 
authenticity of the prophecy that pronounced desolation upon Jeru- 
salem. The most powerful monarch of the earth, stimulated by 



226 MODERN HISTORY. [Part ll. 

pride, j^assloii, and interest, and aided by a zealous people, attempt- 
ed to erect a building in one of his cities, but found all his efforts 
vain, because " the finger of God was there." ^ 

40. During the same year in which Julian attempted the re- 
building of the temple, he set out with a large army for the con- 
quest of Persia. The Persian monarch made overtures of peace 
through his ambassadors ; but Julian dismissed them with the decla- 
ration that he intended speedily to visit the court of Persia. He 
marched with great rapidity into the heart of the country, overcom- 
ing all obstacles, but being led astray in the desert by treacherous 
guides, his army was reduced to great distress by want of provisions, 
and he was forced to commence a retreat. At length Julian himself, 
in a skirmish which proved favorable to the Romans, was mortally 
wounded by a Persian javelin. He died the same night, spending 
his last moments, like Socrates, in philosophical discourse with his 
friends. (A. D. 363.) 

41. In the death of Julian, the race of the great Con' stantine was 
extinct ; and the empire was left without a master and without an 

XXV. tieir. In this situation of affairs, Jovian, who had held 
jo' viAN. some important offices under Con' stantine, was pro- 
claimed emperor by the army, which was still surrounded by the 
Persian hosts. The first care of Jovian was to conclude a dishonor- 
able peace, by which five provinces be3^ond the Tigris, the whole of 
Mesopatamia, and several fortified cities in other districts, were sur- 
rendered to the Persians. On his arrival at An' tioch, Jovian re- 
voked the edicts of his predecessor against the Christians. Soon 
after, while on his way to Constantinople, he was fomid dead in his 
bed, having been accidentally suffocated, as was supposed, by the 
fumes of burning charcoal. (Feb. A. D. 364.) 

42. After an interval of ten days, Valentin' ian, the commander 

of the body ffuard at the time of Jovian's death, was 

XXVI. VAL- »^ o ; ^ 

entin' IAN elected emperor. One month later he associated with 
AND himself, as a colleague in the empire, his brother Yalens, 
upon whom he conferred the government of the Eastern 



VA LENS. 



a. The probable explanation of the remarkable iucldenls attending the attempt of Julian to 
rebuild the temple, is, that tlie numerous subterranean excavations, reservoirs, fcc, beneath 
and around the ruins of the temple, which had been neglected during a period of three hundred 
years, had become filled with inflammable air, which, taking fire from the torches of the work- 
men, repelled, by terrific explosions, those who attempted (o explore the ruins. From a simi- 
lar cause terrible accidents sometimes occur in deeply-excavated mines. — See jMilman's J/'oies 
on Gibbon ; Gibbov, vol. ii. p. 447. 



OflAP. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 227 

provinces, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia ; while 
he reserved for himself the extensive territory reaching from the 
extremity of Greece to the wall of Scotland, and from the latter to 
the foot of Momit Atlas. This was the final division of the Roman 
world into the Eastern and Western Empire. The capital of the 
former was established at Constantinople, and of the latter at Milan. 
The city of Rome had long been falling into neglect and insignifi- 



43. Soon after the period at which we have now arrived, the 

inroads of the barbarian tribes upon the northern and 

. xxvir. 

eastern frontiers of the empire became more vexatious barbarian 
and formidable than ever. The Picts and Scots^ ravaged inroabs. 
Britain ; the Saxons began their piracies in the Northern seas ; the 
German tribes of the Aleman' ni harassed Gaul ; and the Goths 
crossed the Danube into Thrace ; but during the twelve years of 
Valentin' ian's reign, his firmness and vigilance repulsed the barba- 
rians at every point, while his genius directed and sustained the 
feeble counsels of his brother Valens. 

44. About the time of the death of Valentin' ian, (A. D. 375) 
Valens was informed that the power of the Goths, long the enemies 
of Rome, had been subverted by the Huns, a fierce and warlike race 
of savages, till then unknown, who coming from the East, and crossing 
the Don and the sea of Azof, had driven before them the European 
nations that dwelt north of the Danube. The Vis' igoths first solicited 
from the Roman government protection against their ruthless in- 
vaders ; and a vast multitude of these barbarians, whose numbers 
amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes, and all ages, 
were permitted to settle on the waste lands of Thrace. 

45. In the meantime the Os' trogoths, pressed forward by the un- 
relenting Huns, appeared on the banks of the Danube, and. solicited 
the same indulgence that had been shown to their countrymen ; and 
when their request was denied they crossed the stream with arms in 
tlieir hands, and established a hostile camp on the territories of the 
empire. The two divisions of the Gothic nation now united their 
forces under their able general Frit' igern, and raising the standard 

1. The Picts were a Caledonian race, famed for their marauding expeditions into the country 
south of them. The Scots were also a Caledonian race, who are believed to have come, origin- 
ally, from Spain into Ireland, whence they passed over into Scotland. The genuine descend- 
ants of the ancient Scotch are believed to be the Gaels, or Highlanders, who speak the Ei-se 
or Gaelic language, which differs but little from the Irish. 



228 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of war devastated Thrace, Mac' edon, and Thes' saly, and carried 
their ravages to the very gates of Constantinople. In a decisive battle 
fought near Adrianople^ the Romans were defeated, and Valens him- 
self was slain. (A. D. 378.) 

46. G^ratian, the son of Valentin' ian, and his successor in the 

Western empire, was already on his march to the aid of 
gra'tian Valens, when he heard the tidings of the defeat and 
AND death of his unfortunate colleague. Too weak to avenge 
THEODo sius. j^.^ ^^^^^ ^^^ conscious of his inability to sustain alone 
the sinking weight of the empire, he chose as his associate Theodo- 
sius, afterwards called the Great, assigned to him the government of 
the East, and then returned to his own provinces. Theodosius, by 
his prudence, rather than his valor, delivered his provinces from the 
scourge of barbarian warfare. The Goths, after the death of their 
great leader Frit' igern, were distracted by a multiplicity of counsels ; 
and while some of them, falling back into their forests, carried their 
conquests to the unknown regions of the North, others were allowed 
to settle in Thrace, Phrygia, and Lydia, where, in the bosom, of des- 
potism, they cherished their native freedom, manners, and language, and 
lent to the Pvomau arms assistance at once precarious and dangerous. 

47. Five years after the accession of Theodosius, Gratian perished 
XXIX. VAL- ill an attempt to quell a revolt of Max' imus, governor 

entin' ian II. of Britain, who had been joined by the legions of Gaul. 
Valentin' ian II., who succeeded Gratian, was driven from Italy by 
the usurper, and forced to take refuge in the court of Theodosius ; 
but the latter, marching into Italy, defeated and slew Max' imus, and 
restored the royal exile to his throne. (A. D. 388.) The murder 
of Valentin' ian by the Gaul Abrogas' tes, and the revolt which he 
excited, (A. D. 392,) again called for the interference of Theodosius 
in the affairs of the AVest. His arms soon triumphed over all oppo- 
sition ; and the whole empire again came, for the last time, into the 

XXX. HONo'- l^'*^^^ ^^ one individual. (A. D. 394.) Theodosius died 
Rius AND four months after his victory, having previously bestowed 
ARCA Dius. ^^^^ j^-g youngest son, Honorius, the throne of Milan, and 
upon the eldest, Arcadius, that of Constantinople. 

1. Adrianople^ one of the most important cities of Thrace, stood on the left bank of the rivei 
Hebrus, now the Maritza, in one of the richest and finest plains of the world, one hundred and 
thirty-four miles north-west from Constantinople. It was founded by and named after the em- 
peror Adrian, although in early times a small Thracian village existed there, called Uskadama. 
It is now the second city in the Turkish empire, containics a population of not less than one 
hundred thousand souls. (Map No. Vir.) 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 229 

48- The civil wars that followed the accession of the new empe- 
ror were soon interrupted by the more important events of new bar- 
barian invasions. Scarcely had Theodosius expired, when the Gothic 
nation, guided by the bold and artful genius of Al'aric, ^^^^ ^^, ^^ 
who had learned his lessons of war in the school of ric the 
Frit' igern, was again in arms. After nearly all Greece ®*^^^" 
had been ravaged by the invader, Stil'icho, the able general of 
Honorius, came to its assistance ; but Al' aric evaded him by passing 
into Epirus, and soon after, crossing the Julian Alps,^ advanced 
toward Milan. (A. D. 403.) 

49. Honorius fled from his capital, but was overtaken by the 
speed of the Gothic cavalry, and obliged to shut himself up in the 
little fortified town of As' ta,'^ where he was soon surrounded and 
besieged by the enemy. Stil' iclio hastened to the relief of his sov- 
ereign, and suddenly falling upon the Goths in their camp at Pollen'- 
tia,^ routed them with great slaughter, released many thousand prison- 
ers, retook the magnificent spoils of Corinth, Athens, Argos, and 
Sparta ; and made captive the wife of Al' aric. The Gothic chief, 
undaunted by this sudden reverse, hastily collected his shattered 
army, and breaking through the unguarded passes of the Apennines, 
spread desolation nearly to the walls of Rome. The city was saved 
by the diligence of Stil' icho ; but the withdrawal of the barbarians 
from Italy was purchased by a large ransom. 

50. The recent danger to which Honorius had been exposed at 
Milan, induced the unwarlike emperor to seek a more secure retreat 
in the fortress of E-aven' na,* which, from this time to the middle of 

1. Augustus divided the Alpine chain, which extends from the Gulf of Genoa to the Adriat'- 
ic, in a crescent form, into seven portions ; of which the Julian range, terminating in Dlyr- 
icum, is the most eastern. 

2. ^s' ta (now Asti) was on the north side of the river Tanarus, (now Tandro) in Ligiiria, 
twenty-eight miles south-east from Turin. 

3. "The vestiges of Pollen' tia are twenty-five miles to the south-east of Turin." (Gibbon, ii. 
221.) "The modern village of Pollcnza stands near the site of the ancient city." — Cramer'' s 
Italy, i. 28. 

4. Raven' na was situated on the coast of the Adriat' ic, a short distance below tlje mouths 
of the Po. Although originally founded on the sea-shore, in the midst of marsliea, in the days 
of Strabo the marshes had greatly increased, seaward, owing to the accumulation of mud 
brought down by the Po and other rivers. In the latter times of the republic it was the great 
naval station of the Romans on the Adriat' ic. Augustus constructed a new harbor tliree miles 
from the old town, but in no very long time this was filled up also, and, " as early as the fifth or 
(iixth century of the Christian era, the port of Augustus was converted into pleasant gardens; 
and a lonely grove of pines covered the ground where the Roman fleet once rode at anchor." 
{Gibbon, ii. 224.) But this very circumstance, though it lessened the naval importance, in- 
creased the strength of the place, and the shallowness of the water was a barrier against large 
ships of the enemy. The only means of access inland was by a long and narrow causeway 



230 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

the eighth century, was considered as the seat of government and the 
capital of Italy. The fears of Honorius were not without founda- 
tion ; for scarcely had Al' aric departed, when another deluge of bar- 
barians, consisting of Vandals,^ Suevi,"^ Burgun' dians,^ Goths, and 
Alani, and numbering not less than two hi^dred thousand fighting 
men, under the command of Radagaisus, poured down upon Italy. 

51. The Roman troops were now called in from the provinces for 
the defence of Italy, whose safety was again intrusted to the counsels 
and the sword of StiF icho. The barbarians passed, without resist- 
ance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, and were allowed by the 
wary Stil' icho to lay siege to Florence,* when, securing all the passes, 
he in turn blockaded the besiegers, who, gradually wasted by famine, 
were finally compelled to surrender at discretion. (A. D. 406.) The 
triumph of the Roman arms was disgraced by the execution of 
Radagaisus ; and one-third of the vast host that had accompanied 
him into Italy were sold as slaves. 

several miles in extent, over an otherwise impassable morass ; and this avenue might be easily 
guarded or destroyed on the approach of a hostile army. Being otherwise fortified, it was a 
place of gi-eat strength and safety ; and during the last years of the Western empire was the 
capital of Italy, and successively the residence of Honorius, Valentin' ian, Odoacer, Theod' oric, 
and the succeeding Gothic monarchs. It is now a place of about sixteen thousand inhabitants, 
and is chiefly deserving of notice for its numerous architectural remains. (Map No. VIII.) 

1. Van' dais, see p. 219. 

2. The Suevi were a people of eastern Germany who finally settled in and gave tlielr name 
to the modern Suabia. 

3. The Buro-un' dians — dwellers in burgs or towns — a name given to them by the more 
nomade tribes of Germany, were a numerous and warlike people of the Gothic or Van' dal 
race, who can be traced back to the banks of the Elbe. Driven southward by the Gep' ida^, 
they pressed upon the Aleman' ni, with whom they were in almost continual war. They were 
granted by Honorius, the Roman emperor, the territory extending from the Lake of Geneva to 
the jmiction of the Rliine with the Moselle, as a reward for having sent him the head of the 
usurper Joviuus. A part of Switzerland and a large portion of eastern France belonged to 
their new kingdom, which, as early as the year 470, was known by the name of Burgundy. 
Their seat of government was sometimes at Lyons, and sometimes at Geneva- Continually 
endeavoring to extend their limits, they were at last completely subdued, in a war with tlio 
Franks, by the son of Clovis, after Clovis himself had taken Lyons. Their name was for a 
long time retained by the powerful dukedom, afterwards province of Burgundy, now divided 
into several departments. 

4. Florence, (anciently Florentia,) is a city of cejitral Italy on the river Arno, (anciently Arnus.) 
one hundred and eighty-seven miles north-west from Rome. It owes its first distinction to Sylhi, 
who planted in it a Roman colony. In the reign of Tiberius it was one of the principal cities of 
Italy. In 541 it was almost wholly destroyed by Totila, king of the Goths, but was restored by 
Charlemagne, after wliich it was, for a long time, the chief city of one of the most famous of the 
Italian republics. It is now the capital of the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which comprises tb.e 
northern part of ancient Etriiria. With a population of one hundred thousand, it bears the 
aspect of a city filled with nobles and their domestics — a city of bridges, churches, and palaces. 
It has produced more celebrated men than any other city of Ital)', or perliaps of Europe ; 
among whom may be specified Dan' te, Petrarch, Boccacio, Lorenzo de Medici, Galileo, 
Michael An'gelo, Macc^iavelli,— the Popes Leo X. and XL, and Clement VII., VIH., and XI.'. 



Chap. I.] ROMAN HISTORY. 231 

52. Two years after the great victory of Stil' icho, that mmister, 
whose genius might have delayed the fall of the empire, was treach- 
erously murdered by the orders of the jealous and unworthy Hono- 
rius. The monarch had soon reason to repent of his guilty rashness. 
Adopting the counsels of his new ministers, he ordered a massacre of 
the families of the barbarians throughout Italy. Thirty thousand 
Grothic soldiers in the Roman pay immediately revolted, and invited 
Ar aric to avenge the slaughter of his countrymen. 

53. Again Al' aric entered Italy, and without attempting the 
hopeless siege of Haven' na marched direct to Home, which, during 
a period of more than six hundred years, had not been violated by 
the presence of a foreign enemy. After the siege had been protracted 
until the rigors of famine had been experienced in all their horror, 
and thousands were dying daily in their houses or in the streets for want 
of sustenance, the Romans sought to purchase the withdrawal of their 
invaders. The terms of Al' aric were, at first, all the gold and silver in 
the city, all the rich and precious movables, and all the slaves of bar- 
barian origin. When the ministers of the senate asked, in a modest 
and suppliant tone, " If such, King, are your demands, what do you 
intend to leave us ?" " Your lives," replied the haughty conqueror. 

54. The stern demands of Al' aric were, however, somewhat re- 
laxed, and Rome was allowed to purchase a temporary safety by pay- 
ing an enormous ransom of gold and silver and merchandize. 
Al' aric retired to winter quarters in Tuscany,^ but as Honorius and 
his ministers, enjoying the security of the marshes and fortifications 
of Raven' na, refused to ratify the treaty that had been concluded 
by the Romans, the Goth turned again upon Rome, and, cutting ofi" 
the supplies, compelled the city to surrender. (A. D. 409.) He 
then conferred the sovereignty of the empire upon At' talus, prefect 
of the city, but soon deposed him and attempted to renew his nego- 
tiations with Honorius. The latter refused to treat, when the king 
of the Goths, no longer dissembling his appetite for plunder and re- 
venge, appeared a third time before the walls of Rome ; treason 
opened the gates to him, and the city of Romulus was abandoned 
to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia. 

1. Tuscany^ after the fall of the Western empire, successively belonged to the Goths and 
Lombards, Charlemagne added it to his dominions, but under his successors it became in- 
dependent. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was divided among the famous repub- 
lics of Florence, Pisa, and Sienna : in 1531 these were reunited into a duchy whicli, in 1737, 
fell into the hands of Uie honse of Austria. In 1801 Napoleon erected it into the kingdom of 
Etriiria : in 1808 it was incorporated v/ith the French empire ; and in 1814 it reverted to Austria. 



232 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

55. The piety of the Goths spared the churches and religious 
houses, for Al' aric himself, and many of his countrymen, professed 
the name of Christians ; but Rome was pillaged of her wealth, and 
a terrible slaughter was made of her citizens. Still Al' aric was un- 
willing that Rome should be totally ruined ; and at the end of six 
days he abandoned the city, and took the road to southern Italy. As 
he was preparing to invade Sicily, with the ulterior design of subju- 
gating Africa, his conquests were terminated by a premature death. 
(A. D. 410.) His body was interred in the bed of a small rivulet,"- 
and the captives who prepared his grave were murdered, that the 
Romans might never learn the place of his sepulture. 

56. After the death of Al'aric, the Groths gradually withdrew 
from Italy, and, a few years later, that branch of the nation called 
Vis' igoths established its supremacy in Spain and the east of Gaul. 
Toward the middle of the same century, the Britons, finally aban- 
doned by the Romans, and unable to resist the barbarous inroads of 
the Picts and Scots, applied for assistance to the Angles' and Saxons, 
warlike tribes from the coasts of the Baltic. The latter, after driv- 
ing back the Picts and Scots, turned their arms against the Britons, 
and after a long struggle finally established themselves in the island. 

57. During these events in the north and west, the Van' dais, a 
Gothic tribe which had aided in the reduction of Spain, and whose name, 
with a slight change, has been given to the fertile province of Andalusia,' 
passed the straits of Gibraltar under the guidance of their chief Gen'- 

^^^^jj seric, and, in the course of ten years, completed, in the 

Valentin'- capture of Carthage, the conquest of the Roman prov- 

lAN iir. jj^ces of northern Africa. (A. D. 439.) Honorius was 

already dead, and had been succeeded by Valentin' ian III., a youth 

xxxni ^^^y ^^^ years of age. In the meantime At' tila, justly 

CONQUESTS called the " scourge of God " for the chastisement of 

OF AT TILA. ^1^^ human race, had become the leader of the Hunnish^ 

hordes. He rapidly extended his dominion over all the tribes of 

Germany and Scythia, made war upon Persia, defeated Theodosius, 

1. JlDgJes. From them the English have derived their name. 

2.. Andalusia, so culled from the Van' dais, comprised the four Moorish kingdoms of Seville, 
Cor' dova, Jaen, and Granada. It is the most southern division of Spain. Trajan and the 
Seuecas were natives of this province. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. The Huns, when first known, in the century before the Christian era, dwelt on the western 
borders of the Caspian sea. The power of the Huns fell with At' tila, and the nation was soon 
after dispersed. The present Hungarians are descended from the Huns, intermingled with 
Turkish, Slavonic, and German races. 

a. The Buscntinus, a small stream that washes the walls of Consentia, now Cosenza. 



Chap. I] ROMAN HISTORY. 233 

the emperor of the East, in three bloody battles, and after ravaging 
Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece, pursued his desolating march west- 
ward into Gaul, but was defeated by the Romans and their Gothic 
allies in the bloody battle of Chalons.* (A. D. 451.) The next 
year the Huns poured like a torrent upon Italy, and spread their 
ravages over all Lombardy. This visitation was the origin of the 
Venetian republic,^ which was founded by the fugitives who fled at 
the terror of the name of At' tila. 

58. The death of the Hunnic chief soon after this inroad, the civil 
wars among his followers, and the final extinction of the empire of 
the Huns, might have afforded the Romans an opportunity of escap- 
ing from the ruin which impended over them, if they had not been 
lost to all feelings of national honor. But they had admitted numer- 
ous bands of barbarians in their midst as confederates and allies ; 
and these, courted by one faction, and opposed by another, became, 
ere long, the actual rulers of the country. The provinces were pil- 
laged, the throne was shaken, and often overturned by seditions ; and 
two years after the death of At' tila, Rome itself was xxxiv. the 
taken and pillaged by a horde of Van' dais from Africa, van' dals. 
conducted by the famous Gen' seric, who had been invited across the 
Mediterranean to avenge the insults which a Roman princess* had 
received from her own husband. (A. D. 455.) 

1. ChMons (shah-Iong) is a city of France, on the river ftlame, a branch of the Seine, ninety- 
five miles east from Paris, and twenty-seven miles south-east from Rheims. It is situated in 
the middle of extensive meadows, which were formerly known as the Catalauniau fields, 
(Gibbon, iii. 340.) In the battle of Chalons the nations from the Caspian sea to the Atlantic 
fought together ; and the number of the barbarians slain has been variously estimated at from 
one hundred and sixty-two thousand to three hundred thousand. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. The origin of Venice dates from the invasion of Italy by the Huns, A. D. 452. The city ia 
built on a cluster of numerous small islands in a shallow but extensive lagoon, in the north- 
western part of the Adriat' ic, north of the Po and the Adige, about four miles from the main 
land. It is divided into two principal portions by a wide canal, crossed by the principal bridge 
in the city, the celebrated Rialto. Venice is traversed by narrow lanes instead of streets, sel- 
dom more than five or six feet in width! but tJie grand thoroughfares are the canals; and 
gondolas, or canal boats, are the universal substitute for carriages. 

Venice gradually became a wealthy and powerful independent commercial city, maintaining 
its freedom against Charlemagne and his successors, and yielding a merely nominal allegiance 
to the Greek emperors of Constantinople. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century the re- 
public was mistress of several populous provinces in Lom' bardy, — of Crete and Cyprus — of 
the greater part of southern Greece, and most of the isles of the ^gean sea ; and it continued 
to engross the principal trade in Eastern products, till the discovery of a route to India by the 
Cape of Good-Hope turned this trafllc into a new channel. From this period Venice rapidly 
declined. Stripped of independence and wealth, she now enjoys only a precarious existence, 
and is slowly sinking into the waves from which she arose. (Map No. VIII.) 

a. Eudox' ia, the widow of Valentin' ian III., had been compelled to marry Max' imus, tho 
murderer, and successor in the empire, of her late husband, and it was she who invited the 
Van' dal chief to avenge her wrongs. 



234 MODERN HISTORY. [Pabt II. 

59. After the withdrawal of the Van' dais, which occurred the 
year of the death of Valentin' ian III., Av' itus, a Gaul, was installed 

^^^y Emperor by the influence of the gentle and humane 
Av'iTus. Theod'oric, king of the Vis' igoths ; but he was soon de- 
majo'rian. pQgg(j |3y ^i^r -j^g^,^ ^j^g Gothic commander of the barba- 
rian allies of the Romans. (A. D. 456.) The wise and beneficent 
Majorian was then advanced to the throne by Ric' imer ; but his 
virtues were not appreciated by his subjects ; and a sedition of the 
troops compelled him to lay down the sceptre after a reign of four 
years. (A. D. 461.) 

60. Ric' imer then advanced one of his own creatures, Severus, to 
XXXVI. ^^^ nominal sovereignty; but he retained all the powers 

sEv^Rus. of state in his own hands. Annually the Van' dais from 
Africa, having now the control of the Mediterranean, sent out from 
Carthage, their seat of empire, piratical vessels or fleets, which 
^read desolation and terror over the Italian coasts, and entered at 
will nearly every port in the Roman dominions. At length applica- 
tion for assistance was made to Leo, then sovereign of the Eastern 
empire, and a large armament was sent from Constantinople to Car- 
thage. But the aged Gen' seric eluded the immediate danger by a 
truce with his enemies, and, in the obscurity of night, destroyed by 
fire almost the entire fleet of the unsus23ecting Romans. 

61. Amid the frequent revolutionary changes that were occurring 
in the sovereignty of the Western empire,^- Roman freedom and dig- 
nity were lost in the influence of the confederate barbarians, who 
formed both the defence and the terror of Italy. As the power of the 
Romans themselves declined, their barbarian allies augmented their 
demands and increased their insolence, until they finally insisted, 
with arms in their hands, that a third part of the lands of Italy 
should be divided among them. Under their leader Odoacer, a chief 
of the barbarian tribe of the Her' uli,' they overcame the little re- 

1. Of all the barbarians -who threw themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most 
difficult to trace the origin of the Her' uli. Their names, the only remains of their language, 
are Gothic ; and it is believed that they came originally from Scandinavia. They were a fierce 
people, who disdained the use of armor: their bravery was like madness : in war they showed 
no pity for age, nor respect for sex or condition. Among themselves there was the same 
ferocity: the sick and the aged were put to death at tlieir own request, during a solemn festi- 
val ; and the widow hung herself upon the tree whicli shadowed her husband's tomb. The 
Her' uli, though brave and formidable, were few in number, claiming to be mostly of royal 
blood ; and they seem not so much a nation, as a confederacy of princes and nobles, bound by 
an oath to live and die together with their arms in their hands. (^Oibbon, iii. 8 ; and Note, 495-6.) 

tt. Tlie remaining sovereigns of the Western empire, down to the time of its subversion 
were Anthemius, Olyb' rius, Glycerus, Nepos, and Augus' lulus. 



CuAP. L] ROMAN HISTORY. 235 

sistance that was offered them ; and the conqueror, abolishing the im- 
perial titles of Caesar and Augustus, proclaimed him- 
self king of Italy. (A. D. 476.) The Western em- version of 
pire of the Romans was subverted : Roman glory had the west- 
passed away : Roman liberty existed only in the remem- 
brance of the past : the rude warriors of Grermany and Scythia pos- 
sessed the city of Romulus ; and a barbarian occupied the palace of 
the Caesars. 



236 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

CHAPTER II. 

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES: 



vCTENDING FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANt 
A. D. 476, TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, A. D. 1492 = 1016 YEARS. 



SECTION I. 

GENERAL HISTORY, FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE 
ROMANS, TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TENTH CENTURY : = 424 YEARS. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Introductory. The period embraced in the Middle Ages.— 2. Unin- 
structive character of its early history. At what period its useful history begins.— 3. Extent 
of the barbarian irruptions. The Eastern Roman empire. Remainder of the Roman world. — 
4. The possessions of tlie conquerors toward the close of the sixth century. The changes 
wrought by them. Plan of the present chapter. 

5. The Monarchy of the Her' uh. Its overthrow. — 6. Monarchy of the Os'trogoths. 
Theod' oric. Treatment of his Roman and barbarian subjects. — 7. 'General prosperity of his reign. 
Extent of his empire. The Os' trogoth and Vis' igoth nations again divided. — 8. The successors 
of Theod' oric. The emperor of the East.— f). The era of Justin' ian. State of the kingdom. 
Persian war.— 10. Justin' ian's armies. Absence of military spirit among the people.— 11. Af- 
rican war. First expedition of Belisarius, and overthrow of the kingdom of the Van' dais. 
Fate of Gel' imer. His Van' dal subjects. — 12. Sicily subdued. Belisarius advances into Italy. 
Besieged in Rome. — 13. The Gothic king Vit'iges surrenders. Final reduction of Italy by 
Nar' ses. — 14. Second war with Persia. Barbarian invasion repelled by Belisarius. Mournful 
fate of Belisarius. Death and character of Justin' ian. — 15. His reign, why memorable. Its 
brightest ornament. Remark of Gibbon. History of the " Pandects and Code."— 16. Subse- 
quent history of the Eastern empire. Invasion of Italy by the Lombards. — 17. The Lombard 
monarchy. Its extent and character.— 18. Period of general repose throughout Western 
Europe. Events in the East. — 19. The darkness that rests upon European history at this 
period. Remark of Sismondi. The dawning light from Arabia. 

20. The Saracen Empire. History of the Arabians.— 21. Ancient religion of the Arabs. Re- 
ligious toleration in Arabia. [Judaism. The Magian idolatry.]- 22. Mahomet begins to preach a 
new religion. — 23. The declared medium of divine communication with him. Declared origin of 
the Koran. — 24. The materials of the Koran. Chief points of Moslem faith. Punishment of the 
wicked. The Moslem paradise. Effects of the predestinarian doctrine of Mahomet. Practical part 
of the new religion. Miracles attributed to Mahomet. [Mecca.] — 23. Beginning of Mahomet's 
preaching. TheHegira. — 26. Mahomet at Medina. [Medina.] Progress ofthe new religion through 
out all Arabia. [Mussulman.]— 27. The apostasy that followed Mahomet's death. Restoration of 
religious unity. — 28. Saracen conquests in Persia and Syria. [Saracens. Bozrah.] — 29. Con- 
quest of all Syria. [Ernes' sa. Baalbec. Yermouk. Aleppo.] — 30. Conquest of Persia, an,l 
expir.ation ofthe dynasty ofthe Sassan' idae. [Cad6siah. Review of Persian History.]— 31. 
Conquest of Egypt. Destruction of the Alexandrian library.— 32. Death of Omar. Caliphate 
of Othman. — 33. Rlilitary events of the reign of Othman. [Rhodes. Tripoli.] Othman's suc- 
cessors. Conquest of Carthage, and all northern Africa — 34. Introduction of the Saracens into 
Spain. — 35. Defeat of Roderic, and final conquest of Spain. [Guadal6te. Guadalquiver. Meri- 
da.]— 36. Saracen encroachments in Gaul. Inroad of Abdelrahman. [The Pyrenees.] — 37. Over- 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 237 

throw of the Saracen hosts by Charles Martel. Importance of this victory. [Tours. Poictlers.] 
— 38. The Eastern Saiacens at this period. [Hindostan.] Termination of tlie civil power of 
the central caliphate. — 39. The power that next prominently occupies the field of history. 

40. MoMARCHY OF THE FRANKS : its Origin. [Tournay. Cambray. Terouane. Cologne.] 
Clovis. Extent of his monarcliy. [Soissons. Paris.]— 41. Religious character of Clovis. His 
barbarities.— 42. The desceniants of Clovis. Royal murders. Regents, Charles Martel. 
Pepin, the first monarch of the Carlovingian dynasty. [Papal authority.] — 43. The reign, and 
the character, of Pepin. His division of the kingdom. — 44. First acts of the reign of Charle- 
magne. [The Loire.] The Saxons. Motives that led Charlemagne to declare war against them. 
[The Elbe.]— 45. His first irruption into their territory. [Weser.] History of VVitikind. Saxon 
rebellion. Changes produced by these Saxon wars. — 46. Causes of the war with the Lombards. 
Overthrow of the Lombard kingdom. [Geneva. Pavia.] — 47. Charlemagne's expedition into 
Spain. [Catalonia. Pampeluna. Saragos' sa. Roncesvalles.] — 48. Additional conquests. 
Charlemagne crowned emperor at Rome.— 49. Importance of this event. General character of 
the reign of Charlemagne. [Aix-la-Chapelle.] His private life. His cruelties. Concluding 
estimate. — 50. Causes that led to the division of the empire of Charlemagne. — 51. Invasion of 
the Northmen. — 52. Ravages of the Hungarians. The Saracens on the Mediterranean coasts. 
Changes, and increasing confusion, in European society. The island of Britain. 

53. English History. Saxon conquests. Saxon Heptarchy. — 54. Introduction and spread 
of Christianity. — 55. Union of the Saxon kingdoms. Reign of Egbert, and ravages of the 
Northmen. — 56. The successors of Egbert. Accession of Alfred. Slate of the kingdom. — 57. 
Alfred withdraws from public life — lives as a peasant — visits the Danish camp. — 58. Defeats 
the Danes, and overthrows the Danish power. Defence of the kingdom. — 59. Limited sov- 
ereignty of Alfred. Danish invasion under Hastings. The Danes withdraw. Alfred's power 
at the lime of his death. — 60. Institutions, character, and laws, of Alfred. 

1. The "Middle Ages," to which it is impossible to fix accurate 
limits, may be considered as embracing that dark and j intro- 
gloomy period of about a thousand years, extending from ductory. 
the fall of the Western empire of the Romans nearly to the close 
of the fifteenth century, at which point we detect the dawn of mod- 
ern civilization, and enter upon the clearly-marked outlines of modern 
history.^ 

2. The history of Europe during several centuries after the over- 
throw of the Western lioman empire offers little real instruction to 
repay the labor of wading through the intricate and bloody annals 
of a barbarous age. The fall of the Roman empire had carried 
away with it ancient civilization ; and during many generations, the 
elements of society which had been disruptured by the surges of 
barbarian power, continued to be widely agitated, like the waves of 
the ocean, long after the fury of the storm has passed. It is only 
when the victors and the vanquished, inhabitants of the same country, 
had become fused into one people, and a new order of things, new 
bonds of society, and new institutions began to be developed, that 
the useful history of the Middle Ages begins. 

3. We must bear in mind that it was not Italy alone that was 

a. " The ten c<!nturies, from the fifth to the fifteenth, seem, in a general point of view, to con- 
etitute the period of the Middle Ages."— i/a.Va7«. 



238 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

affected by the tide of barbarian conquest ; but that the storm spread 
likewise over Graul, Spain, Britain, and Northern Africa ; while the 
feeble empire which had Constantinople for its centre, alone escaped 
the general ruin. Here the majesty of Rome was still faintly rep- 
resented by the imaginary successors of Augustus, who continued 
until the time of the crusades to exercise a partial sovereignty 
over the East, from the Danube to the Nile and the Tigris. The 
remainder of the Roman world exhibited one scene of general ruin ; 
for wherever the barbarians marched in successive hordes, their 
route was marked with blood : cities and villages were repeatedly 
plundered, and often destroj^ed ; fertile and populous provinces were 
converted into deserts ; and pestilence and famine, following in the 
train of v/ar, completed the desolation. 

4. "When at length, toward the close of the sixth century, the 
frenzy of conquest was over, and a partial calm was restored, the 
Saxons, from the shores of the Baltic, were found to be in possession 
of the southern and more fertile provinces of Britain : the Franks 
or Freemen, a confederation of Germanic tribes, were masters of 
Gaul : the Huns, from the borders of the Caspian Sea, occupied 
Pannonia ; the Goths and the Lombards, the former originally from 
northern Asia, and the latter of Scandinavian origin, had established 
themselves in Italy and the adjacent provinces ; and the Gothic 
tribes, after driving the Van' dais from Spain, had succeeded to the 
sovereignty of the peninsula. A total change had come over the 
state of Europe : scarcely any vestiges of Roman civilization re- 
mained ; but new nations, new manners, new languages, and new 
names of countries were everywhere introduced ; and new forms of 
government, new institutions, and new laws began to spring up out 
of the chaos occasioned by the general wreck of the nations of the 
Roman world. In the present chapter we shall pass rapidly over 
the history of the Middle Ages ; aiming only to j)resent the reader 
such a general outline, or framework, of its annals, as will aid in the 
search we shall subsequently make for the seeds of order, and the 
first rudiments of policy, laws, and civilization, of Modern Europe. 

5. After Odoacer, the chief of the tribe of the Her' uli, had con- 
quered Italy, he divided one third of the ample estates of the nobles 

ir. THE MON- ''^^^0"g ^"s followers ; but although he retained the gov- 

ARCHY OF ernment in his own hands, lie allowed the ancient forms 

THE HER ULI. q£ admiuistratiou to remain ; the senate continued to sit, 

as usual ; and after seven years the consulship was restored ; while 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 239 

none of the municipal or provincial authorities were changed. 
Odoacer made some attempts to restore agriculture in the provinces ; 
but still Italy presented a sad prospect of misery and desolation. 
After a duration of fourteen years, the feeble monarchy of the 
Her' uli was overthrown by the Os' trogoth king, Theod' oric, who, 
disregarding his plighted faith, caused his royal captive, Odoacer, to 
be assassinated at the close of a conciliatory banquet. (A. D. 493.) 
(3. Theod'oric, the first of the Os' trogoth kings of Italy, had 
been brought up as a hostage at the court of Constantinople. At 
times the friend, the ally, and the enemy of the imbecile 
monarchs of the Eastern empire, he restored peace to archy of 
Italy, and a degree of prosperity unusual under the the os'tro- 
swa}:^ of the barbarian conquerors. Like Odoacer, he in- 
dulged his Roman subjects in the retention of their ancient laws, 
language, and magistrates; and employed them chiefly in the ad- 
ministration of government ; while to his rude G-othic followers he 
confided the defence of the State ; and by giving them lands which 
they were to hold on the tenure of military service, he endeavored 
to unite in them the domestic habits of the cultivator, with the ex- 
ercises and discipline of the soldier. 

7. Theod' oric encouraged improvements in agriculture, revived 
the spirit of commerce and manufactures, and greatly increased the 
population of his kingdom, which, at the close of his reign, embraced 
nearly a million of the barbarians, many of whom, however, were 
soldiers of fortune and adventurers who had flocked from all the sur- 
rounding barbarous nations to share the riches and glory which 
Theod' oric had won. Theod' oric reigned thirty-three years ; and 
at the time of his death his kingdom occupied not only Sicily and 
Italy, but also Lower Gaul, and the old Roman provinces between 
the head of the Adriat' ic and the Danube. If he had had a son to 
whom he might have transmitted his dominions, his Gothic succes- 
sors would probably have had the honor of restoring the empire of 
the West ; but on his death, (A. J). 526) the two nations of the Os'- 
trogoths and the Vis' igoths were again divided ; and the reign of 
the Great Theod' oric passed like a brilliant meteor, leaving no per- 
manent impression of its glory. 

8. Seven Os' trogoth kings succeeded Theod' oric on the throne 
of Italy during a period of twenty-seven years. Nearly all met 
with a violent death, and were constantly engaged in a war with 

I, emperor of the East, who finally succeeded in reducing 



210 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Italy under his dominion. The reign of that monarch is the most 
brilliant period in the history of the Eastern empire ; and as it fol- 
lows immediately after the career of Theod' oric in the West, and 
embraces all that is interesting in the history of the period which it 
occupies, we pass here to a brief survey of its annals. 

9. The year after the death of Theod' oric, Justin' ian succeeded 

his uncle Justin on the throne of the Eastern empire. 

IV. THE ^ ^ 

ERA OF His reign is often alluded to in history as the " Era of 
JUSTIN IAN. j^g/ j^i^ian." On his accession he found the kingdom 
torn by domestic factions ; hordes of barbarians menaced the fron- 
tiers, and often advanced from the Danube three hundred miles into 
the country ; and during the first five years of his reign he waged an 
expensive and unprofitable war with the Persians. The conclusion 
of this war, by the purchase of a peace at a costly price, enabled 
Justin' ian, who was extremely ambitious of military fame, to turn his 
arms to the conquest of distant provinces. 

10. Justin' ian never led his armies in person; and his troops con- 
sisted chiefly of barbarian mercenaries — Scythians, Persians, Her'uli, 
Van' dais, and Goths, and a small number of Thracians : the citizens 
of the empire had long been forbidden, under preceding emperors, 
to carry arms, — a short-sighted policy which Justin' ian's timidity 
and jealousy led him to adopt : and so little of military spirit re- 
mained among the people, that they were not only incapable of fight- 
ing in the open field, but formed a very inadequate defence for the 
ramparts of their cities. Under these circumstances, with but a 
small body of regular troops, and without an active militia from 
which to recruit his armies, the military successes of Justin' ian are 
among the difficult problems of the age. 

1 1. Africa, still ruled by the Van' dais, first attracted the military 
ambition of Justin' ian, although his designs of conquest were con- 
cealed under the pretence of restoring to the Van'dal throne its 
legitimate successor, of the race of the renowned Gen' seric. The 
first expedition, under the command of Belisarius, the greatest gen- 
eral of his age, numbering only ten thousand foot soldiers and five 
thousand horsemen, landed, in September 533, about five days' jour- 
ney to the south of Carthage. The Africans, who were still called 
Romans, long oppressed by their Van' dal conquerors, hailed Belisa- 
rius as a deliverer; and Gel' imer, the Van' dal king, who ruled over 
eight or nine millions of subjects, and who could muster eighty thou- 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 241 

sand warriors^ of his own nation, found himself suddenly alone with 
his Van' dais in the midst of a hostile population. Twice Gel' imer 
was routed in battle ; and before the end of November Africa was 
conquered, and the kingdom of the Yan' dais destroyed. Gel' imer 
himself, having capitulated, was removed to Galatia, where ample 
possessions were given him, and where he was allowed to grow old in 
peace, surrounded by his friends and kindred, and a few faithful fol- 
lowers. The bravest of the Van' dais enlisted in the armies of Jus- 
tin' ian ; and ere long the remainder of the Van' dal nation in Africa, 
being involved in the convulsions that followed, entirely disappeared. 

12. Justin' ian next projected the conquest of the Gothic empire 
of Italy, and its dependencies ; and in the year 535 Belisarius land- 
ed in Sicily at the head of a small army of seven thousand five hun- 
dred men. In the first campaign he subdued that island : in the 
second year he advanced into southern Italy, where the old Roman 
population welcomed him with joy, and the Goths found themselves 
as unfavorably situated as the Van' dais had been in Africa ; but, 
deposing their weak prince, they raised Vit'iges to the throne, w4io 
was a great general and a worthy rival of Belisarius. The latter 
gained possession of Rome, (Dec. 536,) where for more than a year 
he was besieged by the Goths ; and although he made good his de- 
fence, almost the entire population of the city in the meantime per- 
ished by famine. 

13. Vit'iges himself was next besieged in Raven' na, and was 
finally forced to surrender the place, and yield himself prisoner. 
(Dec. 539.) He was deeply indebted to the generosity of Justin' ian, 
who allowed him to pass his days in affluence in Constantinople. 
The jealousy of Justin' ian, however, having recalled Eelisarlus from 
Italy, in a few years the Goths recovered their sway ; but it was over 
a country almost deserted of its inhabitants. At length, in the year 
552, Justin' ian formed in Italy an army of thirty thousand meii, 
which he placed under the command of the eunuch Nar' ses, who 
unexpectedly proved to be an able general. In the following 3^ear 
the last of the Os' trogoth kings was slain in battle, and the empire 
of Justin' ian was extended over the deserted wastes of the once fer- 
tile and populous Italy. (A. D. 554.) 

14. In the East, Justin' ian was involved in a second war vrith 
Chosroes, or JSTashirvan, the most celebrated Persian monarch of the 

]. Gibbon, iii. G3, says one hundred and sixty thousand ; and Sismondi, Fall of the Roman 
Empire, i. 221, has the same number. See the co trection in Milman's Notes to Gibbon. 

16 



242 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Sassanid dynasty. Hostilities were carried on during sixteen years 
(A. D. 540 — 556) with unrelenting obstinacy on both sides; but after 
a prodigious waste of human life, the frontiers of the two empires 
remained nearly the same as they were before the war. When Jus- 
tin' ian was nearly eighty years of age he was again obliged to have 
recourse to the services of his old general Belisarius, not less aged 
than himself, to repel an invasion of the barbarians who had ad- 
vanced to the very gates of Constantinople. At the head of a small 
band of veterans, who in happier years had shared his toils, he drove 
back the enemy ; but the applauses of the people again excited the 
jealousy and fears of the ungrateful monarch, who, charging his 
faithful servant with aspiring to the empire, caused his eyes to be 
torn out, and his whole fortune to be confiscated ; and it is said that 
the general who had conquered two kingdoms, was to be seen blind, 
and led by a child, going about with a wooden cup in his hand to so- 
licit charity. Justin' ian died at the age of eighty-three, after a 
reign of more than thirty-eight years. (Nov. 565.) The character 
of Justin' ian was a compound of good and bad qualities ; for al- 
though personally inclined to justice, he often overlooked, through 
v\^eakness, the injustice of others, and was in a great measure ruled 
during the first half of his reign by his wife Theodora, an unprin- 
cipled woman, under whose orders many acts of oppression and 
cruelty were committed. 

15. The reign of Justin' ian forms a memorable epoch in the his- 
tory of the world. He was the last Byzantine emperor who, by his 
dominion over the whole of Italy, reunited in some measure the 
two principal portions of the empire of the Csesars. But his exten- 
sive conquests were not his chief glory : the brightest ornament of 
his reign, which has immortalized his memory, is his famous compi- 
lation of the Koman laws, known as the " Pandects and Code of 
Justin' ian." " The vain titles of the victories of Justin' ian," says 
Gibbon, " are crumbled into dust : but the name of the legislator 
is inscribed on a fi\ir and everlasting monument." To a commission 
of ten emiment lav/yers, at the head of which was Tribonian, Jus- 
tin' ian assigned the task of reducing into a uniform and consistent 
code, the vast mass of the laws of the Boman empire ; and after this 
had been completed, to another commission of seventeen, at the 
head of which also was Tribonian, was assigned the more difiicult 
work of searching out the scattered monuments of ancient jurispru- 
dence, — of collecting and putting in order whatever was useful in 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 243 

the books of former jurisconsults, and of extracting the true spirit 
of the laws from questions, disputes, conjectures, and judicial de- 
cisions of the Roman civilians. This celebrated work, containing 
the immense store of the wisdom of antiquity, after being lost during 
several centuries of the Dark Ages, was accidentally brought to light 
in the middle of the twelfth century, when it contributed greatly to 
the revival of civilization ; and the digest which Gibbon has made 
of it is now received as the text book on civil Law in some of the 
universities of Europe.^ 

16. The history of the Eastern or Greek empire, during several 
centuries after Justin' ian, is so extremely complicated, and its an- 
nals so obscure and devoid of interest, that we pass them by, for sub- 
jects of greater importance. Three years after the death of Justin'- 
ian, Italy underwent another revolution. In the year 568, the whole 
Lombard nation, comprising the fiercest and bravest of the Germanic 
tribes, led by their king Alboin, and aided by twenty thousand Sax- 
ons, descended from the eastern Alps, and at once took possession 
of northern Italy, which, from them, is called Lombardy. The 
Lombard monarchy, thus established, lasted, under twenty-one kings, 
during a period of little more than two centuries. 

17. As the Lombards advanced into the country, the inhabitants 
shut themselves up in the walled cities, many of which, ^^ ,^^^ 
after enduring sieges, and experiencing the most dread- Lombard 
ful calamities, were compelled to surrender ; but the ^^o^archy. 
Lombard dominion never embraced the whole peninsula. The 
islands in the upper end of the Adriat' ic, embracing the Venetian 
League, the country immediately surrounding Raven' na, together 
with Rome, Naples, and a few other cities, remained under the juris- 
diction of the Eastern or Greek emperors, or were at times inde- 
pendent of foreign rule. The Lombards were ruder and fiercer than 
the Goths who preceded them : and they at first proved to the Ital- 
ians far harder task-masters than any of the previous invaders ; but 
the change from a wandering life exerted an influence favorable 
to their civilization ; and their laws, considered as those of a barba- 
rous people, exhibited a considerable degree of wisdom and equality. 

18. The period at which we have now arrived, towards the close 
of the sixth century, exhibits the first interval of partial repose that 
had fallen upon Western Europe since the downfall of the Roman 
empire. Some degree of quiet was now settling upon Italy under 

a. Notes to Gibbon, iii. 151. 



244 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

the rule of the Lombard kings: the Goths were consolidating their 
];Ower in Spain : a stable monarchy was gradually rising in France, 
fVoni the union of the Gallic tribes ; and the Haxons had firmly es- 
tablished themselves in the south of Britain. The only events in 
the Kast that attract our notice consist of a series of wars between 
the Greek emperors and the Persians, during which period, if we are 
10 rely upon doubtful narratives which wear the air of fables, at one 
lime all the Asiatic provinces of the Eastern empire were conquered 
l*y the ]'ersiaris ; and subsecjuently, the whole of Persia, to the 
frontiers of India, was conquered by the monarchs of the Eastern 
(;uipire. Eventually the two empires appear to have become equally 
exhausted ; and when peace was restored (A. D. 028) the ancient 
boundaries were recognized hy both parties. 

19. But while; a degree of comparative repose was settling upon 
Europe, a night of darkness, owing to the absence of all reliable 
documents, rests upon its history, down to the time of Charlemagne. 
" A century and a half passed away," says Sismondi, " during which 
we possess nothing concerning the whole empire of the West, except 
(lates and conjectures."''' This obscurity lasts until a new and unex- 
pected ligfit breaks in from Arabia ; when a nation of shepherds and 
robbers app(;ars as the depository of letters which had been allowed 
to esca,{)e from tlie guardiansliip of every civilized people. 

20. Turning from tlic darkness which shrouds European history 
in the seventh century, we next proceed to trace the remarkable rise 
and establishment of the power of the ►Saracens. In the parched. 

, sandy, and, in great part, desert Arabia, a country 

HAiiACKN. nearly four times the extent of France, the hardy Arab, 
KMi'iiiK, ^^j. ,^^ original and imraixed race, had dwelt from time 
immemorial, in a constant struggle with nature, and enjoying all the 
wild freedom of tlie rudest patriarchal state. The descendants of 
Ishmael — the " wild man of the desert" — have always been free, and 
such tliey will ever remain ; an effect, at once, of their local position, 
and, as many believe, the fulfilment of prophecy; and although a 
few of the fiontier cities of Arabia have been at times temporarily 
subjected by the surrounding nations, Arabia, as a country, is the only 
land in all antiquity that never bowed to the yoke of a foreign conqueror. 

21. The ancient religion of the Arabs was Sabaism, or star-worship, 
which assumed a great variety of forms, and was corrupted by adora- 
tion of a vast number of images, which were supposed to have somo 

u. SiBinumli, I'ull ol' Uic lioinaii Empire, i. 258. 



Chap. II] MIDDLE AGES. 245 

rrijHtcrlouH aflfinlty to the heavenly LrnlJcH. The ArabH had Hcven 
ieiMplcH dedicated to tlie Heven j>lanetK : Honio tribes exoluHively re- 
vered the moon, otliers the do;^ wtar : JmJaiKin'^ waH embraced by a 
few tribeH, ChriHtianity by Home, and the Ma/^ian idolatry' of Pcrwia 
by otherK. So completely free wa.s Arabia, each Kect or tribe being 
independent, that ab.solnte toleration necessarily existed ; and numer- 
ous ref'ug(;e sects that fled fi-oui the persecution of tli(; Ilonian empe- 
rors, found in the wild wa«tcs of thxit country a quiet jisyluin. 

22. About the beginning of the seventh century, Mahom' et or 
Moham' med, an Arabian impostor, descended from the SabuLjan 
priests of Mecca, where was the chief temple of the Saba^ati idola- 
try, began to preach a new religion to his eoimtrymen. lie repre- 
sented to them the incoherence and grossuess of tlieir religious rites, 
and called upon them to abandon their frail idols, and to acknowl- 
edge and adore the One true (jod, — the invisible, all good, and all- 
pow(;rful ruler of the universe. Acknowledging the authenticity 
both of the Jewish scriptures and the Christian revelation, he pro- 
fessed to restore the true and primitive faith, as it had beeri in the 
days of the patriarchs and the prophets, from Adam to the Messiah. 

23. Like Numa of old, Mahom' et sought to give to the doctrincH 
which he taught the sanction of inspired origin and miraculous ap- 
proval ; and as the nymph Kgeria was the miriistering goddess of the 
former, so the angel (^jabriel was the declared medium of divine 
conjujunication with the latter. During a [*ei-iod of twenty-three 

1. 'I7i« M/L<jrian idolatry c<in«iHte<l of tlic rcliiifioiw belief an<l wor«hi|> pr<>hi'l<i/l over hy Wm 
Mfttflan i>ri<i«Uioo'J, who cxnnprimcui, orij^iiially, one of the six trib«;« into which the nation of 
t\ui Muditu wax divided- Ttui JJd/fl, or '•'' w'um men," hjwl not only religion, hut the bitjher 
hrancheh of all learning alii'>, in Ujeir cAfdr^tt ; and they j^ractii^ed diffcrent tvtrlH of divi/mlion, 
anirhUt'^y, and enchantment, for the jjurj»ow of di8f;loHln!< the future, )n(luencin(< the f>r<-iMsnl, 
and callini( the pant U> tlwjir aid. K<j famoiw were they that their name lian been a|>|>lied to all 
orderij of mas^iciann and eiiclj-unlerH, Zoroas* Ujr, v/ho in »uj>|jo»<j'l to have lived uhout tho 
wnenlh fyjnlury l>ef<<re Chriht, reformed the MAj^ian religion, and remodelled the prienUiood ; 
and hy mmti he i« consldere*! tlie founder of the order. 

The Mii'4\a.n pricistH lau^^ht that the tjo<l« are the H|>lrU«i/'il e»Kence« of (fre, earth, atwl waU»r, — 
that Ihere are two ant!«<oniHlic fx^werH in nature, (he one iw^iompliBhin!;^ !<ood de>>i!<nH, the othfsr 
evil ; — that each of the«5 «fiall Kuhdu<j and he Bulxliujd hy turnf, for «ix thousand years, but 
thai, at last, throu<<h the intervention of the still hii^iier and Supreme Iteing, the evil principle 
hh:dl periish, and men shall live in happiness, lU'-ilher needing fo^>:J, nor yielding? a shadow. 

Th«; »rreat influence of the Ma^l is well illatj^raUjd Jn the book of iJaniel, where Nebuchail- 
fjijzzar invok<5d the aid of the ditfcrent cAnimtH of their ordisr— m;«<iciajw, aslrolo^ors, tutratrertt, 
Chaldeans, an<l s<>othsayer.s. In the lime of the Haviour, the Miigian system was not eklfncl, 
as we have eviden<« of In tlje allusion m«wle to Himon Maj^us, who boasted himself to bo 
"s^jme }<reat one." (Act*, viii. 'J— xUl. (J, &u',.) 

a. Hy the term Jadaium la meant the reU(;ious rites tuul d'>ctrine» of the Jews, as enjoiued 
in the law of AlowiS. 



246 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

years occasional revelations, as circumstances required, are said to 
have been made to the Prophet, who was consequently never at a 
loss for authority to justify his conduct to his followers, or for author- 
itative counsel in any emergency. These revelations, carefully treas- 
ured up in the memories of the faithful, or committed to writing by 
amanuenses, (for the Moslems boast that the founder of their religion 
could neither read nor write,) were collected together two years after 
the death of the Prophet, and published as the Kwan^ or Moham'- 
medan Bible. 

24. The materials of the Koran are borrowed chiefly from the 
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and from the legends, traditions, 
and fables of Arabian and Persian mythology. The two great 
points of Moslem faith are embraced in the declaration — " There is 
but one God, and Mahom' et is his prophet." The other prominent 
points of the Moslem creed are the belief in absolute predestina 
tion, — the existence and purity of angels, — the resurrection of the 
"body, — a general judgment, and the final salvation of all the dis- 
ciples of the Prophet, whatever be their sins. Wicked Moslems are 
to expiate their crimes during different periods of suffering, not to 
exceed seven thousand years ; but infidel contemners of the Koran 
are to be doomed to an eternity of woe. A minute and appalling 
description is given of the place and mode of torment, — a vast re- 
ceptacle, full of smoke and darkness, dragged forward with roaring 
noise and fury by seventy thousand angels, through the opposite ex- 
tremes of heat and cold, while the unhappy objects of wrath are tor- 
mented by the hissing of numerous reptiles, and tlie scourges of 
hideous demons, whose pastime is cruelty and pain. The Moslem 
paradise is all that an Arab imagination can paint of sensual felici- 
ty ; — groves, rivulets, flowers, perfumes, and fruits of every variety 
to charm the senses ; while, to every other conceivable delight, sev- 
enty-two damsels of immortal youth and dazzling beauty are assigned 
to minister to the enjoyment of the humblest of the faithful. The 
promise to every faithful follower of the Prophet, of an unlimited 
indulgence of the corporeal propensities, constitutes a fundamental 
principle of the Moham' medan religion. The predestinarian doctrine 
of Mahom' et led his followers towards fatalism, and exercised a 
marked inflaence upon their lives, and especially upon their warlike 
character ; for as it taught them that the hour of death is determined 
beforehand, it inspired them with an indifference to danger, and gave 
a permanent security to their braver}^ Mahom' et promised to those 



Chap. IT.] MIDDLE AGES. 247 

of his followers who fell in battle an immediate admission to the joys 
of paradise. The practical part of the new religion consisted of 
prayer five times a day, and frequent ablutions of the whole body, 
alms, fastings, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. ^ Tradition asserts that 
Mahom' et confirmed by miracles the truth of his religion ; and a 
mysterious hint in the Koran has been converted, by the traditionists, 
into a circumstantial legend of a nocturnal journey through the seven 
heavens, in which Mahom' et conversed familiarly with Adam, Moses, 
and the prophets, and even with Deity himself 

25. It was in the year 609, when Mahom' et was already forty 
years old, that he began to preach his new doctrine at Mecca. His 
first proselytes were made in his own family ; but by the people his 
pretensions were long treated with ridicule ; and at the end of thir- 
teen years he was obliged to flee from Mecca to save his life. (A. D. 
622.) This celebrated flight, called the Hegira, is the grand era of 
the Moham' medan religion. 

26. Kepairing to Yatreb, the name of which he changed to Medi- 
na,= (or Medinet el Nebbi, the city of the Prophet,) he was there re- 
ceived by a large band of converts with every demonstration of joy ; 
and soon the whole city acknowledged him as its leader and prophet. 
Mahomet now declared that the empire of his religion was to be es- 
tablished by the sword : every day added to the number of his prose- 
lytes, who, formed into warlike and predatory bands, scoured the 
desert in quest of plunder ; and after experiencing many successes 
and several defeats, Mahoni' et, in the seventh year of the Hegira, 
with scarcely a shadow of opposition, made himself master of Blecca, 
whose inhabitants swore allegiance to him as their temporal and 
spiritual prince. The conquest or voluntary submission of the rest 
of Arabia soon followed, and at the period of Mahom' et's last pil- 
grimage to Mecca, in the tenth year of the Hegira, and the year of 
his death, a hundred and fourteen thousand Mussulmen^ marched 
under his banner. (A. D. 632.) 

1. Jl/ecca, the birth-place of Jilahom'et, and the great centre of attraction to all pilgrims of 
the Moham' medan faith, is in western Arabia, about forty miles east from the Red Sea. 
Forraerly the concourse of pilgrims to the " holy city" was immense; but the taslc for pil- 
grimages is now rapidly declining throughout the Moham' medan world. 

2. Medina is situated in western Arabia, one hundred miles north-east from its port of Yembo 
on the Red Sea, and two hundred and sixty miles north from Mecca. It is surrounded by a v\all 
about forty feet high, flanked by thirty towers. It is now chietly important as being in posses- 
sion of the tomb containing the remains of the prophet. 

3. The word Mussulman^ which is used to designate a follower of Mahom' et, signifies, in 
the Turkish language, " a true believer." 



248 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

27. Maliom' et died without having formed any organized govern- 
ment for the empire which he had so speedily established ; and al- 
though religious enthusiasm supplied, to his immediate followers, the 
place of legislation, the Arabs of the desert soon began to relapse 
into their ancient idolatries. The union of the military chiefs of the 
Prophet alone saved the tottering fabric of Moslem faith from dis- 
solution. Abubekr, the first believer in Mahom' et's mission, was 
declared lieutenant or caliph ; and the victories of his general 
Khaled, surnamed " the sword of God," over the apostate tribes, in a 
few months restored religious unity to Arabia. 

28. But the spirit of the Saracens^ needed employment ; and pre- 
parations were made to invade the Byzantine and Persian empires, 
both of which, from the long and desolating wars that had raged 
between them, had sunk into the most deplorable weakness. Khaled 
advanced into Persia and conquered several cities near the ruins of 
Babylon, when he was recalled, and sent to join Abu Obeidah, who 
had marched upon S^^ria. Palmyra submitted : the governor of Boz- 
rah'^ turned both traitor and Mussulman, and opened the gates of the 
city to the invaders ; Damascus was attacked, besieged, and finally 
one part of the city was carried by storm at the moment that an- 
other portion had capitulated. (Aug. 3d, 634.) Abubekr died the 
very day the city was taken, and Omar succeeded to the Caliphate. 

29. The fall of Ernes' sa,^ and Baalbec'^ or Heliop'olis, soon fol- 

1. The word Saracen, from sa7-a, " a desert," means an Arabian. 

2. BozraJi, was fifty miles south from Damascus, and eighty miles north-east from Jerusalem. 
Thougli now almost deserted, the whole town and its environs are covered with pillars and 
other ruins of the finest workmanship. It is frequently mentioned in Scripture. In Jeremiah, 
xlix. 13, we read, " For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah shall become a 
desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse." (Map No. VI.) 

3. Ernes' fta, now Hems, a city of Syria, was on the eastern bank of the Oron' tes, now the 
Aaszy, eighty-five miles north-east from Damascus. It was the birth-place of the Roman em- 
peror Elagabalus. (jMap No. VI.) 

4. Baalbec, or Heliop' olis, — the former a Syrian and the latter a Greek word — both meaning 
the "city of the sun," was a large and splendid city of Syria, forty miles north-west from Da- 
mascus, and about thirty-five miles from the Mediterranean. The remains of ancient architec- 
tural grandeur in Baalbec are more extensive than in any other city of Syria, Palmyra excepted. 
It is believed that Baal-Ath, built by Solomon in Lebanon, (2. Chron. viii. 6,) was identical with 
]?aal-Bec. While under the Roman pov/er it was famed for its wealth and splendor ; and the 
terms of its surrender to the Saracens sufficiently attest its great resources at that period : — 
two thousand ounces of gold, four thousand ounces of silver, two thousand silken vests, and 
one thousand swords, besides those of the garrison, being the price demanded and paid to pre- 
serve it from plunder. Although repeatedly sacked and dismantled, yet the changes that have 
taken place in the channels of commerce are the principal causes of its decay ; and, judging 
from its decline during the last century, — from five thousand inhabitants to less than two hun- 
dred,— jirobably the day is not far distant when, like many other Eastern cities, it will cease to 
be inliiiliited. (Map No. VI.) 



Chap. 11.] MIDDLE AGES. 249 

lowed that of Damascus. Ilerac' lius, the Byzantine emperor, made 
one great effort to save Syria, but on the banks of the Yermouk^ his 
best generals were defeated by Khaled with a loss of seventy thousand 
soldiers, who were left dead on the field. (Nov. 636.) Jerusalem, 
after a siege of four months, ca23itulated to Omar, who caused the 
ground on which had stood the temple of Solomon to be cleared of 
its rubbish, and prepared for the foundation of a mosque, which still 
bears the name of the Caliph. The reduction of Aleppo^ and An- 
tioch, six years after the first Saracen invasion, completed the con- 
quest of Syria. (A. D. 638.) 

30. In the meantime the conquest of Persia had been followed 
up by other Saracen generals. In the same year that witnessed the 
battle of Yermouk, the Persians and Saracens fought on the plains 
of Cadesiah^ one of the bloodiest battles on record. Seven thousand 
five hundred Saracens and one hundred thousand Persians are said 
to have fallen. The fate of Persia vfas determined, although the 
Persian monarch kept together some time longer the wrecks of his 
empire, but he was finally slain in the year 65 ] , and with him ex- 
pired the second Persian dynasty, that of the Sassan' idee." 

31. Soon after the battle of Cadesiah, Omar intrusted to his lieu- 



1. Tlie Yermouk, the Hieromax of the Greeks, is a river that empties into the Jordan from 
the east, seventy-five miles south-west from Damascus. (Map No. VI.) 

2. .Aleppo, in northern Syria, is one hundred and ninety-six miles north-east from Damascus, 
and fifty-five miles east from Antioch. It is surrounded by massive walls thirty-feet high and 
twenty broad. It was once a place of considerable trade, communicating with Persia and 
India by way of Bagdad, and with Arabia and Egypt by way of Damascus ; but the discovery 
of a passage to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope struck a deadly blow at its greatness, 
and it is now little more than a shadow of its former self. 

?,. Cadesiah was on the borders of the Syrian desert, south-west from Babylon. 

4. The overthrow of the last of the great Persian dynasties is an appropriate point for a brief 
review of Persian history. 

It has been stated that, after the overthrow of the Persian monarchy by Alexander the Great, 
Asia continued to be a theatre of wars waged by his ambitious successors, until Seleiicus, 
about the year 307 before our era, established himself securely in possession of the countries 
between the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Oxus, and thus founded the empire of the Seleucidce. 
This empire continued undisturbed until the year 250 B. C, when the Parthians, under Jlrsaces.^ 
revolted, and established the Parthian empire of the .Irsac' idae. The Parthian empire at- 
tained its highest grandeur in the reign of its sixth monarch, Withridates I., who carried his 
arms even farther than Alexander himself. The descendants of Arsaces ruled until A. D. 2.^0, 
a period of 480 years, v>'hen the last prince of that family was defeated and taken prisoner by 
Ar'deshir Bab' igan, a revolted Persian noble of the family of Sassaii, who thus became the 
founder of the dynasty of the Sassan' idcB. The period of nearly five centuries between th« 
death of Alexander the Great and the reign of Ar' desliir, is nearly a blank in Eastern history ; 
and what little is known of it is obtained from the pages of Roman writers. No connected 
authentic account of this period can be given. The dynasty of the Sassan' idas continued until 
the overthrow of tlie Persian hosts on the plains of Cadesiah, when the religion of Zoroaster 
gave place to the triumph of the Mussulman faith. 



250 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

tenant the conquest of Egypt, then formmg a part of the Byzantine 
or Greek empire. Peleu' sium/ after a month's siege, opened to the 
Saracens the entrance to the country (638) ; the Coptic inhabitants 
of Upper Egypt joined the invaders against the Greeks ; Memphis, 
after a siege of seven months, capitulated ; Alexandria made a 
longer and desperate resistance, but at length, at the close of the 
year 640, the city was surrendered, a success which had cost the be- 
siegers twenty-three thousand lives. When Amru asked Omar what 
disposition he should make of the famous Alexandrian library, the 
caliph replied, " If these writings agree with the Koran, they are use- 
less, and need not be preserved ; if they disagree, they are pernicious, 
and should be destroyed." The sentence was executed with blind 
obedience, and this vast store of ancient learning fell a sacrifice to 
the blind fanaticism of an ignorant barbarian. ^ 

32. Four years after the conquest of Egypt, the dagger of an as- 
sassin put an end to the life and reign of Omar. (Nov. 6th, 644.) 
Othman, the early secretary of Mahom' et, succeeded to the caliphate; 
but his extreme age rendered him poorly capable of supporting the 
burden laid upon him. Various sects of Moslem believers began to 
arise among the people : contentions broke out in the armies 5 and 
Othman, after a reign of eleven years, was poniarded on his throne, 
while he covered his heart with the Koran. (June 18th, 655.) 

33. The conquest of Cyprus and Rhodes,'* and the subjugation of 
the African coast as far westward as Tripoli,^ were the principal 



1. Peleusium, au important city of Egypt, was at the entrance of the Peleasiac, or most east- 
ern branch of the Nile. It was surrounded by marshes ; and the name of the city was derived 
from a Greek word signifying mud. Near its ruins stands a dilapidated castle named Tinch, 
the Arabic term for mire. 

2. Rhodes, a celebrated island in the Mediterranean, is off the south-west coast of Asia 
Minor, ten miles south from Cape Volpe, the nearest point of the main land. lis greatest 
length iiS forty-five miles ; greatest breadth eighteen. The city of Rhodes, one of the best built 
and most magnificent cities of the ancient world, was at the north-eastern extremity of the 
island. The celebrated colossus of Rhodes, — a brazen statue of Apollo, about one hundred 
and five feet in height, and of the most admirable proportions, — has been deservedly reckoned 
one of the seven wonders of tlie world ; but the assertion that it stood with a foot on each side 
the entrance to the port, and that the largest vessels, under full sail, passed betwecu its legs, is 
an absurd fiction, for which there is not the shadow of authority in any ancient writer. The 
story originated with one Blaise de Vigenere, in the 16th century. (Map No. IV.) 

3. Tripoli, a maritime city of northern Africa, is west of the ancient Barea and Cyrenaica, 
and about two hundred and seventy miles south from Sicily. 

a. Sismondi, ii. p. 18, distrusts the common account of the loss of the Alexandrian library. 
'Gibbon, vol. ill. p. 439, says, "For my own part, I am strongly tempted to deny both the fact 
.and the consequences." But since Gibbon wrote, several new Moham' medan authorities hare 
been adduced to support the common version of the story- See Note to Gibbon, iii. 522 ; also 
-Orichton's Arabia. i..355^ 



Chap. II.J MIDDLE AGES. 251 

military events that distinguished the reign of Othman ; but the 
political feuds and civil wars that distracted the reign of his suc- 
cessors, Ali and Moawljah, suspended the progress of the western 
conquests of the Saracens nearly t^yenty years.^ Gradually, how- 
ever, the Saracens extended their dominion over all northern Africa ; 
and in the year 689 one of their generals penetrated to the Atlantic 
coast ; but Carthage, repeatedly succored from Constantinople, held 
out nine years longer, when being taken by storm, it was finally and 
utterly destroyed. From this epoch northern Africa became a section 
of the great Moham' medan empire. All the Moorish tribes, resembling 
the roving Arabs in their customs, and born under a similar climate, 
being ultimately reduced to submission, adopted the language, name, 
and religion, of their conquerors ; and at the present day they can 
with difficulty be distinguished from the Saracens. 

34. Scarcely had the conquest of Africa been completed, when a 
Vis' igothic noble, irritated by the treatment which he had received 
from his sovereign, the tyrant Roderic, secretly despatched a mes- 
senger to Musa, the governor of Africa, and invited the Saracens 
into Spain. A daring Saracen, named Taric, first crossed the straits 
in the month of July, 710, on a predatory incursion ; and in the fol- 
lowing spring he passed over again at the head of seven thousand 
men and took possession of Mount Calpe, whose modern name of 
Gibraltar (Gibel-al-Taric, or Hill of Taric), still preserves the name 
of the Saracen hero. 

35. When Roderic was informed of the descent of the Saracens, 
he sent his lieutenant against them, with orders to bind the pre- 
sumptuous strangers and cast them into the sea. But his lieutenant 
was defeated, and soon afterward, Roderic himself also, who had 
collected, on the banks of the Guadalete,' his whole army, of a hun» 
dred thousand men. Roderic, a usurper and tja-ant, was hated and 
despised by numbers of his people ; and during the battle, which 
continued seven days, a portion of his forces, as had been previously 

1. The QuadaUtc i^ a stream that enters the hurbor of Cadiz, aboiU sixty miles north-^yest 
from Gibraltar. The battle appears to have been fought on the plains of the rnodern Xcres do 
la Frontera, about ten miles north-west from Cadiz. i^JMap No, XHI.) 

a. Mahom' et had promised forgiveness of sins to the ftrat army which should besiege tho 
Byzantine capital ; and no sooner had Moawiyab destroyed his rivals and established his 
throne, than he sought to expiate the guilt of civil blood by shedding that of the infidels ; 
but during every summer for seven years (.688—675) a Mussulman army in vain attacked tliu 
walls of Constantinople, and the tide of conquest was turned aside to seeli another channel for 
its entrance into Europe. 



252 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

arranged, deserted to the Saracens. The Goths were finally routed 
with immense slaughter, and Roderic avoided a soldier's death only 
to perish more ignobly in the waters of the Guadalqniver :^ but the 
victory of the Saracens was purchased at the expense of sixteen 
thousand lives. Most of the Spanish towns now submitted without 
opposition; Mer'ida,^the capital, after a desperate -resistance, ca- 
pitulated with honor ; and before the end of the year 713 the whole 
of Spain, except a solitary corner in the northern part of the penin- 
sula, was conquered. The same country, in a more savage state, had 
resisted, for two hundred years, the arms of the Romans ; and it re- 
quired nearly eight hundred years to regain it from the sway of the 
Moors and Saracens. 

36, After the conquest of Spain, Mussulman ambition began to 
look beyond the Pyrenees :^ the disunited Gallic tribes of the 
Southern provinces soon began to negotiate and to submit ; and in a 
few years the south of France, from the mouth of the Garonne to 
that of the Rhone,^ assumed the manners and religion of Arabia. 
Rut these narrow limits were scorned by the spirit of Abdelrahman, 
the Saracen governor of Spain, who, in the year 732, entered Gaul 
at the head of a host of Moors and Saracens, in the hope of adding 
to the faith of the Koran whatever yet remained unsubdued of France 
or of Europe. An invasion so formidable had not been witnessed 
since the days of At' tila ; and Abdelrahman marked his route with 
fire and sword ; for he spared neither the country nor the inhabit- 
ants. 

37. Everj^thing was swept away by the overpowering torrent, until 
Abdelrahman had penetrated to the very centre of France, and 

1. The river Ouadalqidver (in English gau-d'l-quiv'-er, in Spanish gwad-al-ke-veer'), on 
•which stands the cities Seville and Cor' dova, enters the Atlantic about fifteen miles north from 
Cadiz. Its ancient name was Bxtis : its present appellation^ Waihj-al-kehir^ signifying "the 
great river," is Arabic. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. jT/e/-' ida, the Augusta Emer' ita of the Romans, whence its modern name, was fovmded 
by Augustus Caesar 25 B. C. It is in the south-western part of Spain, on the north bank of the 
(iuadiana. and in the province of Estremadura. It is now a decayed town ; but the architec- 
tural remains of the power and magniflcence of its Roman masters render it an object of great 
interest. It remained in the hands of the Saracens from 713 to 122B, when it opened its gates to 
Alphonso IX., after his signal victory over the Moors ; and from this period downward, it has 
been attached to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. The Pyrenees mountains, which separate Spain from France, extend from the Atlantic to 
the Mediterranean, a distance of about two hundred and seventy miles, with an average breadth 
of about tliirty-eight miles. (Map No. XIII.) 

4. For the territory thus embraced under the Saracen sway, see Map No. XIII. The Garonne, 
rising near tlie Spanish border, runs a north-westerly course. From its union with the Dor- 
dogne, forty-five miles from its entrance into the Bay of Biscay, it is called the Gironde—irom 
which the noted "department of the Gironde" takes its name. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 253 

pitched his camp between Tours^ and Poictiers.^ His progress had 
not been unwatched by the confederacy of the Franks, which, torn 
asunder by intrigues, and the revolts of discontented chiefs, now 
united to oppose the common enemy of all Christendom- At the 
head of the confederacy was Charles Martel, who, collecting his 
forces, met Abdelrahman on the plains of Poictiers, and, after six 
days' skirmishing, engaged on the seventh in that fearful battle that 
was to decide the fate of Europe. In the light skirmishing the 
archers of the East maintained the advantage ; but in the close 
onset of the deadly strife, the Grerman auxiliaries of Charles, grasp- 
ing their ponderous swords with " stout hearts and iron hands" stood 
to the shock like walls of stone, and beat down the light armed 
Arabs with terrific slaughter. Abdelrahman, and, as was reported 
by the monkish historians of the period, three hundred and seventy- 
five thousand ^ of his followers, were slain. The Arabs never re- 
sumed the conquest of Gaul, although twenty-seven years elapsed 
before they were wholly driven beyond the Pyrenees. Europe to 
this day owes its civil and religious freedom to the victory gained 
over the Saracens before Poictiers, by Charles, the Hammer'^ which 
shattered the Saracen forces. 

38. About the time of the conquest of Spain, the Saracens made 
a second unsuccessful attempt to reduce the Byzantine capital ; 
but farther east they were more successful, and extended their do- 
minion and their religion into Hindostan',^ and the frozen regions 

1. Tours is situated between the rivers Cher and Loire, near the point of their confluence, 
one hundred and twenty-seven miles south-west from Paris. Tours was anciently the capital 
of the Turones, conquered by Caesar 55 B. C. After many vicissitudes it fell into the hands 
of the Plantagenets, and formed part of the English dominions till 1204, when it was annexed 
lo the French crown. {Map No. XHI.) 

2. Poictiers, or Poitiers, (anciently called Limonum, and afterward Pictavi,) sixty miles 
south-west from Tours, is the capital of the department of Vienne. It is one of the most 
ancient towns of Gaul; and the vestiges of a Roman palace, an aqueduct, and an amphithe- 
atre, arc still visible. Besides the celebrated defeat of the Saracens in 732, Poictiers is mem- 
orable for the signal victory obtained in its vicinity Sept. 19th, 1358, by an English army 
commanded by Edward the Black Prince, over a vastly superior French force commanded by 
king John. (See p. 300. Maj) No. XIII.) 

3. Hindostan', a vast triangular country beyond the Indus, and south of the Himalaya 
mountains— the country of the Hindoos — has no authentic early history, although there is evi- 
dence to show that it was one of the early seats of Eastern civilization. The incursion of Al- 
exander (325 B. C.) first made Hindostan' known to the European world. In the early part of 
the 11th century it was repeatedly invaded by the Moham'medans of Affghanistan, who, in 

a. This was probably Ibe whole number of the Mussulman force, not the number slain. See 
Crichton's Arabia, i. 409, Note. 

b. Charles wielded a huge mace ; and the epithet of " le martel," or " the Hammer" is ex- 
pressive of the resistless force with which he dealt his blows. 



254 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of Tartary. But the animosities of contending sects, domestic broils, 
revolts, assassinations, and civil wars, had long been weakening the 
central power which held together the unwield}'' Saracen empire ; 
and before the close of the eighth century, the civil power of the 
central caliphate had broken into fragments, although the spiritual 
power of the religion of the Prophet still maintained its ascendancy 
in all the regions that had once adopted the Moslem faith. 

39. We have thus briefly traced the history of the rise and es- 
tablishment of the civil power and the religion of the Saracens, and 
their progress until eflfectually checked by the arms of the Franks 
and their confederates on the plains of Poictiers. The power which 
thus obtrudes upon our view, as the bulwark and defence of Christ- 
endom, is the one that next prominently occupies the field of History, 
while that of the Saracens, weakened and distracted by its divisions, 
declines in historical interest and importance. 

40. The origin of the monarchy of the Franks is generally traced 

back nearly two centuries and a half prior to the defeat 
MONARCHY of thc Saraccus by Charles Martel, about the era of the 
OF THE downfall of the Western empire of the Romans. It is 
said that the Germanic tribes of the Franks or Free- 
men, occupied, at this early period, four cities in north-eastern or 
Belgic Gaul, viz. : — Tournai,^ Cambray,'^ Terouane,^ and Cologne,* 
which were governed by four separate kings, all of whom ascribed 
their origin to Merov^eus, a half fabulous hero, whose rule is dated 
back a century and a half earlier. Of the four kings of the Franks, 



1193, made Delhi their capital. lu 1225 the country was conquered by Baber, the fifth in de- 
scent from "Timour the Tartar ;" and with him began a race of Mogul princes. Arungzebe, 
who died in 1707, was the greatest of the Mogul sovereigns. The discovery of a passage lo 
India, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, opened the country to a new and more formidable 
race of conquerors. The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French, obtained possession of por- 
tions of the Indian territory ; but in the end they v,^ere overpowered by the English, who have 
established beyond the Indus a great Asiatic empire. 

1. Tournay, a town of Belgium, on the river Scheldt, (skell) forty-five miles south-west from 
Brussels, and one hundred and thirty norlh-east from Paris, is the Civ' itas Mcrviorum lakcu 
by Julius CiBsar. It has since belonged to an almost infinite number of masters. (Map No. XV.) 

2. Cambray on the Scheldt, (skelt) is thirty-three miles south from Tournay. It was a city 
of considerable importance under the Romans, and has been the scene of many important 
events in modern history. It was long famous for its manufacture of fine linens and lawns ; 
whence all similar fabrics are called, in English, cambrics. {Map No. XV.) 

3. Terouane (ter-oo-an') appears to have been west from Brussels, near Dunkirk. 

4. Cologne is in the present Prussia, on the left bank of the Rhine, one hundred and twelve 
miles east from Brussels. A Roman colony was planted in Cologne by Agrippina, the daughter of 
German' icus, who was bom there. Hence it obtained the name of Jlgrippina Colonia : after- 
wards it was called Colonia, or " the colony," Avhence the term Cologne. {Map No. XVTI.) 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 255 

the ambitious Clovis,^ who ruled over the tribe at Tournai was the 
most powerful. Being joined by the tribe at Cambraj, he made 
war upon the last remains of the Roman power in Graul ; enlarged 
his territory by conquest, and established his capital at Soissons.^ 
(A. D. 484.) At a later period he transferred the seat of sovereignty 
to Paris ;"-^ (A. D. 494) and at the time of his death, in 511, nearly 
the half of modern France, embracing that portion north of the Loire, 
was comprised in the monarchy of which he is the reputed founder. ^ 

41. Clovis, like many of the barbarian chiefs of that period, was 
a nominal convert to Christianity ; and being the first of his nation 
who embraced the orthodox faith, he received from the Gaulish 
clergy the title of 'jnost Christian king, which has been retained by 
his successors to the present day. But his religion, a matter of mere 
form, seems to have exerted no influence in restraining the natural 
ferocity and blood thirstiness of his disposition, as all the rival mon- 
archs or chieftains whom he could conquer or entrap were sacrificed 
to his jealousy and ambition. He put to death with his own hand 
most of his relations, and then, pretending to repent of his barbari- 
ty, he ofiered his protection to all who had escaped the massacre, 
hoping thus to discover if any survived, that he might rid himself 
of them also. 

42. The descendants of Clovis, who are called Merovingians, from 
their supposed founder, reigned over the Franks for nearly two cen- 
turies and a half; but the repulsive annals of this long and barba- 
rous period are one tissue of perfidy and crime. It was usually the 
first act of a monarch, on ascending the throne, to put to death his 
brothers, uncles, and nephews ; and thus consanguinity generally led 
to the most deadly and fatal enmity. These murders so thinned the 
race of Clovis as often to produce the reign of kings under age ; 

1. Soissons, (sooiih-song) now a fortified town on the river Aisne, sixty-eight miles north- 
east from Paris, — anciently J^'oDiodinmm, — was a city of the Sucssones^ in Belgic Gaul, which 
submitted to Julius Caesar. Here Clovis extinguished the last remains of the Western empire 
by his victory over the Roman general Syagrius. Tlic town then became the capital of the 
Franks, and, afterwards, of a kingdom of its own name, in the sixth and seventh centuries. 
(Map No. XIII.) 

2. Paris^ the metropolis of France, is situated on the river Seine, (sane) one hundred and 
ten miles from its mouth, and two hundred and ton miles south-east from London. When 
Gaul was invaded by Julius Cresar, Paris, then called Lutetia, was the chief town of tho 
Belgic tribe of the Paris' r/,— whence the city derives its modern name. It was at Lut<^tia 
that Julian the Apostate was saluted emperor by his soldiers. (Map No. XIII.) 

a. The Roman corruption of Chlodwig, or, in modern German, Ludwig : in modern French 
Jjouis. — Sismondi^ i. 17.5, Note. 

b. See J\r£ustria, Note, p. 272. 



256 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

and eventually the custom was established of electing regents or 
guardians for them, who, bj exercising the royal functions during the 
minority of their wards, acquired a power above that of the monarch 
himself At the time of the Saracen invasion of France, Charles 
Martel, the guardian of the nominal sovereign, governed France with 
the humble title of mayor or duke. His son Pepin succeeded him, 
and during the minority of his royal ward, the imbecile Childeric 
III., wielded the power, without assuming the name and honors of 
royalty ; but at length, in 752, he threw off the mask, obtained a 
decree of pope Zachary in his favor, dethroned the last of the Mero- 
vingian kings, and caused himself to be crowned in the presence of 
the assembled nation, the first monarch of the Carlovingian dynasty. 
It was upon this occasion that the popes first exercised the authority 
of enthroning and dethroning kings. ^ 

43. Of the reign and the character of Pepin we know little, ex- 
cept that he exhibited a profound deference for the priesthood, and 
was engaged in a long struggle with the former German allies of the 
Franks ; and that at the time of his death, in 768, there was no 
portion of Gaul that was not subject to the French monarchy. He 
divided his kingdom between his two sons, Charles the elder, usually 
called Charlemagne, and Carloman the younger ; to the former of 
whom he bequeathed the western portion of the empire, and to the 
latter, the eastern ; but as Carloman died soon after, Charles stripped 

1. The frequent allusions made in history to papal authority and papal supremacy, render 
necessary some explanation of the growth of the papal power. 

The word pope comes from the Greek word^^oj^a, and signifies /aiAer. In the early times of 
Christianity this appellation was given to all Christian priests ; but during many centuries past 
it has been appropriated to the Bishop of Rome, whom the Roman Catholics look upon as the 
common father ot all Christians. 

Roman Catholics believe that Jesus Christ constituted St, Peter the chief pastor to watch 
over his whole flock here on earth — that he is to have successors to the end of time— and that 
the bishops of Rome, elected by the cardinals or chief of the Romish clergy, are his legitimate 
successors, popes, or fathers of the church, who have power and jurisdiction over all Christians, 
in order to preserve unity and purity of failli, doctrine, and worship. 

During a long period after the inlroduction of Christianity into Rome, the bishops of Rome 
were merely fathers of the Church, and possessed no temporal power. It was customary, 
however, to consult the pope in temporal matters ; and the powerful Pepin found no difficulty 
in obtaining a papal decision in favor of dethroning the imbecile Childeric, and inducing the 
pope to come to Paris to officiate at his coronation. Soon after, in 755, Pepin invested the 
pope with the exarchate of Raven' na ; and it is at this point— the union of temporal and 
spiritual jurisdiction— that the ])roper history of the papacy begins. Charlemagne and suc- 
ceeding princes added other provinces to the papal government ; but a long struggle for su- 
premacy followed, between the popes and the German emperors ; and under the pontificate 
of Gregory VII., towards the close of the eleventh century, the claims of the Roman pontiffs 
to supremacy over all the sovereigns of the earth, were boldly asserted as the basis of the po- 
litical system of the papacy. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 257 

his brother's widow and children of their inheritance, which he added 
to his own dominions. 

44. The first acts of the reign of Charlemagne showed the warrior 
eager for conquest ; for, advancing with an army beyond the Loire,' 
he compelled the Aquitanians, who had been subdued by Pepin, but 
had since revolted, to submit to his authority. His next enemies 
were the Saxons, who bounded his dominions on the north-east, and 
whose territories extended along the German ocean from the Elbe^ 
to the Rhine. While all the other Grerman tribes had adopted 
Christianity, the Saxons still sacrificed to the gods of their fathers ; 
and it was both the desire of chastising their repeated aggressions, 
and the merit to be derived from their conversion to Christianity, 
that led Charlemagne to declare war against these fierce barbari- 
ans. (A. D. 772.) 

45. His first irruption into the Saxon territory was successful ; for 
he destroyed the pagan idols, received hostages, and on the banks of 
the Weser^ concluded an advantageous peace. But the free spirit of 
the Saxons was not quelled : again and again they rose in insurrec- 
tion, headed by the famous Witikind, a hero worthy of being the 
rival of Charlemagne ; and the war continued, with occasional inter- 
ruption, during a period of thirty-two years. At length, however, 
peace was granted to Witikind, who received baptism, Charlemagne 
himself acting as sponsor ; and Saxony submitted to the Frankish 
institutions, as well as to those of Christianity. A few years 
later the Saxon youth, who had taken no share in the previous con- 
flicts, arose in rebellion, but they were eventually subjugated, 
(A. D. 804,) when ten thousand of their number were transported 
into the country of the Franks, where they were gradually merged 
into the nation of their conquerors. It was in the midst of the 
ravages of these Saxon wars that the north of Germany passed from 
barbarism to civilization ; for monasteries, churches, and bishoprics, 
immediately sprung up in the path of the conquerors ; and although 

1. The Loire^ (looar) (anciently Liger), is the principal river of France, through the central 
part of which it flows, in a W. direction to the Atlantic. Its basin comprises nearly one-fourth 
part of the kingdom. The Loire was the northern boundary of the country of the Jiquitiinians. 
The early seat of the empire of Charlemagne was therefore north of the Loire. {Map 
No. XIIL) 

2. The Elbc^ (anciently M' bis,) rising in the mountains of Bohemia, flows north-west 
through central Europe, and enters the German ocean, or North sea, at the southern extremity 
of Denmarlf. This stream was the easternmost extent of the Germanic expeditions of the Ro- 
mans. (J»/aj^ No. XVIL) 

3. The Weser, (anciently Visur' gis,) a river of Germany, enters the north sea between the 
Elbe on the east and the Ems on the west. (Map No. XVII.) 

17 



258 MODERI^ HISTORY. [Part 11. 

tlie religion wliicli they planted was superficial and corrupt, they at 
least diffused some respect for the arts of civilized life. 

46. Soon after the commencement of the Saxon wars, Charle- 
magne found another, but less formidable enemy, in the Lombards 
of Italy. The Lombard king had given protection to the widow of 
Carloman, the deceased brother of Charlemagne, and had required 
pope Adrian to anoint her sons as kings of the Franks ; and upon 
Adrian's refusal, he threatened to carry war into his little territory 
of a few square miles around Rome. The pope demanded aid from 
Charlemagne, who, assembling his warriors at Geneva,^ crossed the 
Alps into Italy and compelled the Lombard king, Desiderius, to 
shut himself up in his capital at Pavia,^ which, after a siege of six 
months, surrendered. Desiderius became prisoner, and was sent to 
end his days in a monastery, while Charlemagne, placing the iron 
crown of the Lombards upon his head, caused himself to be pro- 
claimed king of Italy. (774.) 

47. A few years after the overthrow of the kingdom of the Lom- 
bards, Charlemagne carried his conquering arms into Spain, whither 
he had been invited by the viceroy of Catalonia,^ to aid him against 
the Moham' medans. (677-8.) Pampelima* and Saragos' sa^ were 
dismantled, and the Arab princes of that region swore fealty to tho 
conqueror, but on the return of Charlemagne across the Pyrenees, 
his rear guard was attacked in the famous pass of Roncesvalles,^ and 

1. Geneva, described by Caesar aa being *' the frontier town of the Allobrogians," retains its 
ancient name. It is on the Rhone, at the south-western exlremily of the Lake of Geneva, 
(anciently Leman' nus), and is the most populous city of Switzerland. In the year 426 it was 
taken by the Burgun' dians, and became their capital. It afterwards belonged, successively, to 
the Os' trogoths and Franks, and also to the second kingdom of Bur' gundy. On the fall of the 
latter it was governed by its own bishops; but at the time of the Reformation the bishops 
were expelled, and Geneva became a republic. (Maps No. XIV. and XVII.) 

2. Pdvia, (anciently Ticimivi,) is situated on the Ticino (anciently Ticinus,) north of the Po, 
and twenty miles south from Milan. Pavia has sustained many sieges, but is principally dis- 
tinguished for the great battle fought in its vicinity Feb. 24lh, 1525. See p. 327. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Catalonia was the north-western province of Spain. It was successively subject to the 
Romans, Goths, and Moors ; but in the 8th and 9th centuries, in connection with the adjoining 
French province of Rous' sillon, it became an independent State, subject to the counts or earls 
of Barcelona. {Map No. XIIL) 

4. Pampcluna, a fortified city of Spain, supposed to have been built by Pompey after the de- 
feat of Sertorius, (see p. 176,) is a short distauce south of the Pyrenees, and forty miles from 
the Bay of Biscay. It was the capital of the kingdom, now province, of Navarre. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Saragos' ga, (anciently Cwsar Augusta) situated iu a fine plain on the Fbro, (anciently 
Iberus,) is eighty-seven miles south-east from I'ampeluna. It is a very ancifcut city, and is 
said to have been founded by the Phoenicians or Carthaginians. Julius Caesar greatly enlarged 
it, and Augustus gave it the name of Cajsar Augusta, with the privileges of a free colony. 
(Map No. XIII.) 

6. Roncesvalles (Roji'-sa-val) is about twenty miles north-east from Pampeliina. {Map No. XIII.) 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 259 

entirely cut to pieces. Poesy and fable have combined to render 
memorable a defeat of which history has preserved no details. 

48. After Charlemagne had extended his empire over France, 
Germany, and Italy, minor conquests easily followed ; and many of 
the other surrounding nations, or rather tribes, fell under his power, 
or solicited his protection. Thus the dominion of the Franks pene- 
trated into Hungary, and advanced upon the Danube as far as the 
frontiers of the Greek empire. A conspiracy in Rome having forced 
the pope to seek the protection of Charlemagne, in the year SOO 
the latter visited Rome in person to punish the evil doers. While 
he was there attending services in St. Peter's Church, at the Christ- 
mas festival, the gratified pontiff placed upon his head a crown of 
gold, and, in the formula observed for the Roman emperors, and 
amid the acclamations of the people, saluted him by the titles of 
Emperor and Augustus. This act was considered as indicating the 
revival of the Empire of the West, after an interruption of about 
three centuries. 

49. Charlemagne, a king of the German Franks, was thus seated 
on the throne of the Caesars. Nor was the circumstance of his re 
ceiving the imperial crown unimportant, as by the act he declared 
himself the representative of the ancient Roman civilization, and not 
of the barbarism of its destroyers. In Italy, Charlemagne sought 
teachers for the purpose of establishing public schools throughout 
his dominions: he encouraged literature, and attempted to revive 
commerce ; and his capital of Aix-la-Chapelle^ he so adorned with 
sumptuous edifices, palaces, churches, bridges, and monuments of art, 
as to give it the appearance of a Roman city. By the wisdom of 
his laws, and the energy which he displayed in executing them, he 
established order and regularity, and gave protection to all parts of 
his empire. But with all the greatness of Charlemagne, his private 
life was not free from the stain of licentiousness ; and where his 
ambition led him he was unsparing of blood. He caused four thou- 
sand five hundred imprisoned Saxons to be beheaded in one day, as 
a terrible example to their countrymen, and as an act of retribution 
for an army which he had lost ; and as a right of conquest he de- 
nounced the penalty of death against those who refused baptism, or 
who even eat flesh during Lent. Still his long reign is a brilliant 

I. Aix-la-Chapelle (a-la-shappel') the favorite residence of Charlemagne, is an old and 
well-built city of Prussian Germany, west of the Rhine, and seventy-eight miles east from 
Brussels. (^Maps No. XIII. and XVII.) 



260 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

period in the history of the middle ages ; — the more interesting, from 
the preceding chaos of disorder, and the disgraces and miseries which 
followed it ; — resembling the course of a meteor that leaves the dark- 
ness still more dreary as it disappears. 

50. The posterity of Charlemagne were unequal to the task of 
preserving the empire which he had formed, and it speedily fell 
asunder by its own weight. To the mutual antipathies of different 
races, — the German on the one side, including the Franks, knit to- 
gether by their old Teutonic tongue, — and the nation of mingled 
Gallic, Roman, and Barbarian origin, on the other, which afterwards 
assumed the name of Franks, and gave to their own country the 
appellation France, — was added the rivalry of the Carlovingian 
princes ; and about thirty years after the death of Charlemagne 
(A. D. 814), at the close of a period of anarchy and civil war, the 
empire was divided among his descendants, and out of it were con- 
stituted the separate kingdoms, — France, Germany, and Italy. 
(A. D. 843.)a 

51. The motive that led the Carlovingian princes to put an end 
to their unnatural wars with each other, was the repeated invasion 
of the coasts of France and Germany by piratical adventurers from 
the north, called Northmen or Danes, a branch of the great Teutonic 
race, who, issuing from all the shores of the Baltic, annually ravaged 
the coasts of their more civilized neighbors, — and, by hasty incur- 
sions, even pillaged the cities far in the interior. During more than 
a century these Northern pirates continued to devastate the shores 
of Western Europe, particularly infesting the coasts of Britain, 
Ireland, and France. 

52. In the meantime central Europe became a prey to the Hun- 
garians, a warlike Tartarian tribe, whose untamed ferocity recalled 
the memory of At' tila. The Saracens also, masters of the Medi- 
terranean, kept the coasts of Italy in constant alarm, and twice in- 
sulted and ravaged the territory of Rome. Amid the tumult and 
confusion thus occasioned, European society was undergoing a 
change, from the absolutism of imperial authority to the establish- 
ment of numerous dukedoms, having little more than a nominal de- 
pendence upon the reigning princes. Power was transferred from 
the palace of the king to the castle of the baron ; and for a time 
European history, — that of France in particular — is occupied with 
the annals of an intriguing, factious, aspiring nobility, rather than* 

a. By the treaty of Verdun, Aug. 11th, 843. 



KNGLISH 
HISTORY. 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 261 

with those of monarchs and the people. From the confusion inci- 
dent to such a state of society we turn to the neighboring island of 
Britain, where, a few years after the dissolution of the empire of 
Charlemagne, the immortal Alfred arose, drove back the tide of bar- 
barian conquest, and laid tlie foundation of those laws and institu- 
tions which have rendered England the most enlightened and most 
powerful of the nations of Europe. 

53. We have mentioned that, towards the close of the sixth cen- 
tury, the Saxon tribes from the shores of the Baltic had made them- 
selves masters of the southern and more fertile provinces ^j^j 

of Britain. After having extirpated the ancient British 
population, or driven it into Cornwall and Wales on the 
western side of the island, the kindred tribes of the Angles and Sax- 
ons, imder the common name of Anglo Saxons, established in England 
seven independent kingdoms, which are known in histor}^ as the Saxou 
Heptarchy. The intricate details, so far as we can learn them, of the 
history of these kingdoms, are uninteresting and unimportant ; and 
from the period of the first inroads of the Saxons down to the 
time of the coronation of Alfred the Great in 872, the chronicles of 
Britain present us with the names of numerous kings, the dates of 
many battles, and frequent revolutions attended with unimportant 
results; — the history of all which is in great part conjectural, and 
gives us little insight into individual or national character. 

54. It appears that about the year 597 Christianity was first intro 
duced into England by the monk Augustine, accompanied by forty 
missionaries, who had been sent out by pope G-regory for the con- 
version of the Britons. The new faith, such as it pleased the church 
to promulgate, being received cordially by the kings, descended from 
them to their subjects, and was established without persecution, and 
without the shedding of the blood of a single martyr. The religious 
zeal of the Anglo Saxons greatly exceeded that of the nations of the 
continent ; and it is recorded that, during the Heptarchy, ten kings 
and eleven queens laid aside the crown to devote themselves to a 
monastic life. 

55. In the year 827 the several kingdoms of the Saxon Hep- 
tarchy were united in one great State by Egbert, prince of the West 
Saxons, an ambitious warrior, who exhibits some points of compari- 
son with his illustrious cotemporary Charlemagne, at whose court he 
had spent twelve years of his early life. The Saxon union, under the 
firm administration of Egbert, promised future tranquillity to the in- 



262 MODERN HISTORY. [Part TI 

habitants of Britain ; but scarcely had a regular government been es- 
tablished when the piratical Scandinavians, known in France under 
the name of Normans, and in England by that of Danes, landed in 
the southern part of the island, and after a bloody battle with Eg- 
bert at Charmouth in Dorsetshire, made good their retreat to their 
ships, carrying off all the portable wealth of the district. (A. D. 833.) 
This was the beginning of the ravages of the Northmen in England ; 
and they continued to plunder the coasts for nearly two centuries. 

56. From the death of Egbert in 838, to the accession of Alfred 
the Great in 871, the throne of England was occupied by four Saxon 
princes ;^ and the whole of this period, like the corresponding one 
in French history, is filled with the disastrous invasions of the Danes.^ 
In the course of a single year nine sanguinary battles were fought 
between the Saxons and their invaders ; and in the last of these bat- 
tles king Ethelred received a wound which caused his death 
(871-2.) His brother Alfred, then only twenty-two years of age, 
succeeded to the throne. He had served with distinction in the 
numerous bloody battles fought by his brother ; but on his accession 
he found nearly half the kingdom in the possession of the Danes ; 
and within six years the almost innumerable swarms of these in- 
vaders struck such terror into the English, that Alfred, who strove to 
assemble an army, found himself suddenly deserted by all his war- 
riors. 

57. Obliged to relinquish the ensigns of royalty, and to seek 
shelter from the pursuit of his enemies, he disguised himself under 
the habit of a peasant, and for some time lived in the cottage of a 
goatherd, known only to his host, and regarded by his hostess as an 
inferior, and occasionally intrusted by her with the menial duties of 
the household. It is said that, as he was one day trimming his ar- 
rows by the fire-side, she desired him to watch some cakes that were 
baking, and that when, forgetting his trust, he suffered them to burn, 
she severely upbraided him for his neglect. Afterwards, retiring 
with a few faithful followers to the marshes of Somersetshire, he 
built there a fortress, whence he made occasional successful sallies 
upon the Danes, who knew not from what quarter the blow came. 
While his very existence was unsuspected by the enemy, under the 

a. Ethelwolf, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred. 

b. As the lerm JVormavs was at a later period exclusively appropriated to that branch of tho 
Scandinavians which settled in Normandy, we shall follow the English writers and apply the 
term Danes to those barbarians of the same family who so long ravaged the English coasts. 
It should not be forgotten by the reader that the Saxons also were of Scandinavian origin. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 263 

disguise of a harper he visited their camp, where his musical skill 
obtained for him a welcome reception, and an introduction to the 
tent of the Danish prince, Gruthrum. Here he spent three days, wit- 
nessed the supine security of the enemy, thoroughly examined the 
camp and its approaches, and then went to meet his countrymen, foi* 
whom he had appointed a gathering in Selwood forest.^ 

58. The Saxons, inspired with new life and courage at the sight 
of their beloved prince, whom they had supposed dead, fell upon the 
unsuspecting Danes, and cut nearly all of them to pieces. (A. D. 878.) 
Guthrmn, and the small band of followers who escaped, were soon 
besieged in a fortress, where they accepted the terms of peace that 
were offered them. Guthrum embraced Christianity ; the greater 
part of the Danes settled peaceably on the lands that were assigned 
them, where they soon intermingled with the Saxons ; while the more 
turbulent spirits went to join new swarms of their countrymen in 
their ravages upon the French and German coasts. The shores of 
England were unvisited, during several years, by the enemy, and 
Alfred employed the interval of repose in organizing the future de- 
fence of his kingdom. In early life he had visited Italy, and seen 
the Greek and Roman galleys, which were greatly superior to 
the Danish unarmed vessels, that were fitted only for transport. 
Alfred now formed a navy ; and his vessels never met those of the 
Danes without the certain destruction of the latter. 

59. The Danes, however, who had settled in England, still occu- 
pied the greater part of the country, so that the acknowledged sov- 
ereignty of Alfred did not extend over any of the countries north- 
ward of the city of London, — and fifteen years after the defeat of 
Guthrum, Hastings, another celebrated Danish chief, threatened to 
deprive the English king of the limited possessions which he still re- 
tained. After having plundered all the northern provinces of France, 
Hastings appeared on the coast of Kent with three hundred and 
thirty sail, and spreading his forces over the country, committed the 
most dreadful ravages. (A. D. 893.) The Danes in the northern 
parts of England joined him ; but they were everywhere defeated, 
and eventually Hastings withdrew to his own countr}^, taking back 
with him the most warlike portion of the Danish population, from the 
English channel to the frontiers of Scotland, after which the whole 
of England no longer hesitated to acknowledge the authority of Al- 
fred, although his power over the Danish population in the northern 

a. At Brixton, on the borders of the forest, in Wiltshire. Wiltshire is east of Somerset. 



264 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II- 

part of the kingdom was still little more than nominal. He died 
after a reign of twenty-nine years and a-half, having deservedly at- 
tained the appellation of Alfred the Great, and the title of founder 
of the English monarchy. (A. D. 901.) 

* 60. To Alfred the English ascribe the origin of many of those in- 
stitutions which lie at the foundation of their nation's prosperity and 
renown. As the founder of the English navy, he planted the seeds 
of the maritime power of England : with him arose the grandeur 
and prosperity of London, the place of the assembling of the national 
parliament or body of prelates, earls, barons, and burghers, or depu- 
ties from the English burghs, or associations of freemen : he made a 
collection of the Saxon laws, to which he added others framed or 
sanctioned by himself; he reformed the Saxon division of the country 
into counties and shires ; divided the citizens into corporations of 
tens and hundreds, with a regular system of inspection and police, 
in which equals exercised a supervision over equals ; and in the mode 
which he adopted of settling controversies, we trace the first indica- 
tions of the glory of the English judiciary — the trial by jury. The 
cultivation of letters, which had been interrupted at the first inva- 
sion of the then barbarous Saxons, was revived by Alfred, who was, 
himself, the most learned man in the kingdom : he founded schools 
at Oxford — the germ of the celebrated university of that name ; 
and he set aside a considerable portion of his revenues for the pay- 
ment of the salaries of teachers. The character of Alfred is almost 
unrivalled in the annals of any age or nation ; and in the details of 
his private life we cannot discover a vice, or even a fault, to stain or 
sully the spotlessness of his reputation. 



SECTION II. 

GENERAL HISTORY DURING THE TENTH, ELEVENTH, TWELFTH, AND THIR- 
TEENTH centuries: A. D. 900 to 1300 = 400 years. 

I. COMPLETE DISSOLUTION OF THE BONDS OF SOCIETY. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Causesof the coNrvsioN of Historic materials at this period. — 2. State 
OF THE Saracen WORLD. [Bagdad. Cor' dova. Khorassan'.] — 3. The Byzantine empire. 
Turkish invasions and conquests. [Georgia.] — 4. The divisions of the Carlovingian empire. 
Condition of Italy. Berenger duke of Friull. Prince of Burgundy. Hugh count of Pro- 
vence. Surrender of the kingdom to Otho. [Friiili. Switzerland. Provence.]— 5. Italy under 
the German emperors. Guelfs and Ghibellines. Dukes, marquises, counts, and prelates. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 265 

Petty Italian republics.— 6. Condition of Germany. Its six dukedoms. [Saxony. Thurin' gia. 
Franconia. Bavaria. Suabia. Lorraine.] Encroachments of the dukes. Reign of Conrad. 
Henry I. of Saxony. Powers of tlie Saxon rulers. — 7. Condition of Franck. Charles the 
Simple, Other princes. Deposition of Charles. [Transjurane Burgundy. Provence. Brit- 
tany.] — 8. Settlement of the Northmen in France. [Normandy.] Importance of this event. — 
9. The counts of Paris. Hugh Capet. [Rheims.] Situation of France for two hundred and 
forty years after the accession of Hugh Capet. 

11. THE FEUDAL SYSTEM; CHIVALRY ; AND THE CRUSADES- 

l. Europe in the central period of the Middle Ages. Origin of the Feudal System. Its 
duration and importance. — 2. Partition of lands by the barbarians who overthrew the Roman 
empire. Conditions of the allotment. Gradations of the system. — 3. Nature of the estates 
thus obtained. Crown lands— how disposed of. The word feud. — 4. The feudal system hi 
France. Charlemagne's efforts lo clieck its progress. Effects upon the nobility. Growth of 
the power of the nobles after the overthrow of royal authority. Their petty sovereignties. — 5. 
Condition of the allodial proprietors. They are forced to become feudal tenants. — 6, Legal 
qualities and results that grew out of the feudal system. Reliefs, fines, escheats, aids, ward- 
ship and marriage. — 7. The feudal government in its best state. Its influence on the character 
of society. General ignorance at this period. Sentiments of independence in the nobility. 

8. Rise of Chivalry. Our first notices of it. Its origin. — 9. Its rapid spread, and its good 
effects. — 10. Its spirit based on noble impulses. Extract from Hallam : From James. Cus- 
toms and peculiarities of chivalry. Who were members of the institution. — 11. The profession 
of arms among the Germans. Education of a knight. The practice of knight-errantry. — 1? 
Exttent of chivalry in the 11th century. Its spirit led to the crusades. 

Origin of the Cru.sadks. — 13. Pilgrimages lo Jerusalem. General expectation of the ap- 
proaching end of the world.— 14, Extortion and outrage practiced upon the pilgrims. Horror 
and indignation excited thereby in Europe. The preaching of Peter the Hermit. [Amiens.]— 
15. The councils of Placentia and Clermont. [Placeutia and Clermont.] Gathering of the 
crusaders for the First Crusade. — 10. Conduct and fate of the foreni<jst bands of the cru- 
saders. The genuine army of the crusade. [Bouillon.]— 17. Conduct of Alexius, emperor of 
Constantinople. His proposals spurned by the crusaders. — 18. Number of the crusaders col- 
lected in Asia Minor. First encounter with the Turks. [Nice. Bithyn'ia. Roum.] Th-j 
inarch to Syria. [Dorilae' um.]— 19. The siege and capture of Antioch. The Persian and 
Turkish hosts defeated before the town.— 2rt. Civil wars among the Turks. The caliph of Egypt 
takes Jerusalem. Proposal lo unite his forces with the Christians rejected.— 21. March of the 
crusaders to Jerusalem. [Mt. Lib' anus. Trip'oli. Tyre. Acre. Ciesaroa.] Transports of 
the Christians on the first view of the city. Attack, and repulse.— 22. Capture of Jerusalem. 
Acts of veneration and worship. Reception given to Peter the Hermit. His ultimate fate. — 
23. The new government of Jerusalem. Minor Christian States. Defenceless state of Jerusa- 
lem under Godfrey. Continued pilgrimages. Orders of knighthood established at Jerusalem. 
The noted valor of the knights. 

24. Continued yearly emigration of pilgrim warriors to the lloiy Land. Six principal cru- 
sades. Their general character,— 25. The Second Crusade. The leading army under Conrad, 
The army of French and Germans. — 26. .Jerusalem taken by Snladin. The Third Crusade. 
Fate of the German emperor. Successes of the French and English. Return of Philip. 
Richard concludes a truce with Sahidin. [Ascalon.] — 27, The Fourth Crusade, led by Boni- 
face. The crusaders take Zara, and conquer Constantinople. No benefit to Palestine. [Jlont- 
serrat. Zara.] — 28. The Fifth Crusade. Partial successes, and final ruin, of the expedition. 
[Damietta.] Expedition of the German emperor, Frederic II. Treaty with the sultan, by 
which Jerusalem is yielded to the Cliristians. Jerusalem again taken by the sultan, but re- 
stored. 

29. Cotemporary events in northern Asia. Tartar Conqiiests in Asia and in lCuroi>e. 
[China. Russia, Kiev. Moscow.] Alarm of the Christian nations of Europe. Recall of the 
conquering hordes. — 30. The Corasmins. They overrun Syria and take Jerusalem, but are 
finally expelled by the united Turks and Christians.— 31. Tlie Sixth Crusade, led by Louis 
IX., who attacks Egypt. The second crusade of Louis. Attack upon Carthage. Result of the 
expedition.— .32. Acre, tlie last stronghold of the Christians in Syria, taken by the Turks, 1291. 
Results of the Crusades. 



266 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

III. ENGLISH HISTORY. 

1. Our last reference to the history of England. The present continuation.— 2. Condition of 
England after thk death of Alfred. England during tlie reign of Ethelred II. Massacre 
of the Danes. Effects of this impolitic measure. Canute. Recall of Ethelred. Edmund 
Ironside. Canute sole monarch. — 3. Hie conciliatory policy. His vast possessions. Character 
of his administration of the government. — 4. Harold and Hardicanute. The reign of Edward 
the Confessor. Events that disturbed his reign. Accession of Harold. The Norman 
Conquest. [Sussex. Hastings.] — 5. Gradual conquest of all England. William's treatment 
of his conquered subjects. — G. The feudal system in England. The Doomsday Book. Saxons 
and Normans. — 7. Reigns of William Rufus, and Henry I. — 8. Usurpation and reign of Stephen. 
Henry II. [Plantagenet.] — 9. Henry's extensive possessions. Reduction of Ireland. [His- 
tory of Ireland.] The troubles of Henry's reign. — 10. Reign of Richard, the Lion Hearted. — 11. 
Reign of John, surnamed Lackland. Loss of his continental possessions. Quarrels with tlie 
pope : — with t'le barons. Magna Charta. Civil war, and death of John. — 12. The long reign 
of Henry III. His difficulties with the barons. First germs of popular representation. 13. 
The reign of Edward I. Subjugation of Wales. [History of Wales.] — 14. Relations be- 
tween England and Scotland. The princess Margaret. — 15. Baliol and Bruce. Beginning of 
the Scottish wars. Submission of Baliol. [Dunbar.] — 16. W^illiam Wallace recovers Scot- 
land, but is defeated at Falkirk. [Stirling. Falkirk.] Fate of Wallace.— 17. Robert Bruce 
crowned king of Scotland. Edward II. defeated by him. [Scone. Bannockburn.] 

18. Northern nations of Europe during this period. Wars between the Moors and Christians 
in the Spanish peninsula. Final overthrow of the Saracen power in the peninsula. 

1. Complete dissolution of the bonds of society. — 1. The tenth 
century brings us to the central period of what has been denomi- 
nated the Middle Ages. The history of the known world presents 

I CONFUSION ^ gJ^^^ater confusion and discordance of materials at this 
OF iiisTORio than at any preceding epoch ; for at this time we have 
MATERIALS. jjgi^];^Qj. j^ great empire, like the G-recian, the Persian, or 
the Roman ; nor any great simultaneous movement, like the mighty 
tide of the barbarian invasions, to serve as the starting and the re- 
turning point for our researches, and to give, by its prominence, a 
sort of unity to cotemporaneous history ; but on every side we see 
States falling into dissolution ; the masses breaking into fragments ; 
dukes, counts, and lords, renouncing their allegiance to kings and 
emperors ; cities, towns, and castles, declaring their independence ; 
and, amid a general dissolution of the bonds of society, we find 
almost universal anarchy prevailing. 

2. In the East, the empire of the caliphs, the mighty colossus of 
Mussulman dominion, was broken ; the Saracens were no longer ob- 

ji THE J^^*^ ^^ terror to all their neighbors, and the frequent 
SARACEN revolutions of the throne of Bagdad,^ the central seat 
WOULD. Q^ ^^^ religion of the prophet, had ceased to have any 

1. Bagdad, a famous city of Asiatic Turkey, — long the chief seat of Moslem power in Asia, 
—the capital of the Eastern caliphate, and of the scientific world during the "Dark Ages," is 
siiaated on the river Tigris, sixty-eight miles north of the ruins of Baljylon. 

Bagdad was founded by the caliph Al-Mansour, A. D. 763, and is said to have been priuci- 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 267 

influence on the rest of the world. About the middle of the eighth 
century, the Moors of Spain had separated themselves from their 
Eastern brethren, and made Cor'dova^ the seat of their dominion; 
and little more than two centuries and a half later, (A. D. 1031) 
the division of the Western Caliphate into a great number of small 
principalities, which were weakened by civil dissensions, contributed 
to the enlargement of the Christian kingdoms in the northern part 
of the peninsula. Soon after the defection of the Moors of Spain, 
an independent Saracen monarchy had arisen in Africa proper : this 
was followed by the establishment of new dynasties in Egypt, 
Khorassan',^ and Persia ; and eventually, in the tenth century, we 
find the Caliphate divided into a great number of petty States, whose 
annals, gathered from oriental writers, furnish, amid a labyrinth of 
almost unknown names and countries, little more than the chronology 
of princes, with the civil wars, parricides, and fratricides of each 
reign. Such was the condition of that vast population, comprising 
many nations and languages, which still adhered, although under dif- 
ferent forms, and with many departures from the originals, to the 
general principles of the moslem faith. 

3. The Byzantine empire still continued to exist, but in weakness 
and corrup'^ion. " From the age of Justin' ian," says Gibbon, " it 



pally formed out, of the ruins of Ctes' iphon. It was greatly enlarged and adorned by the 
grandson of its founder, the famous Haroun-al-Raschid. It continued to flourish, and to be 
the principal seat of learning and the arts till 1258, when lloolaku, grandson of Gengis Khan, 
reduced the city after a siege of two months, and gave it up to plunder and massacre. It is 
said that the number of the slain in the city alone amounted to eight hundred thousand. Since 
that event Bagdad has witnessed various other sieges and revolutions. It was burnt and 
plundered by the ferocious Timour A. D. 1401, who erected a pyramid of human heads on its 
ruins. In 1637 it incurred the vengeance of Amurath IV., the Turkish sultan, who barbarously 
massacred a large portion of the inhabitant'?. Since that period the once illustrious city, now 
numbering less than a hundred thousand inhabitants, has been degraded to the seat of a Turk- 
ish pashalic. The rich merchants and the beautiful princesses of the Arabian Tales have all 
disappeared ; but it retains the tomb of the charming Zobeide, the most beloved of the wives 
of Haroun-al-Raschid, and can still boast of its numerous gardens and well stocked bazaars. 

1. Cor' dova, a city of Andalusia in Spain, is situated on the Guadalquiver, one hundred and 
eighty-five miles south-west from Madrid. It is supposed to have been founded by the Ro- 
mans, under whom it attained to great distinction as a rich and populous city, and a seat of 
learning. In 572 it was taken by the Goths, and in 711 by the Moors, under whom it after- 
wards became the splendid capital of the "Caliphate of the West;" but with the extinclioa 
of the Western -Caliphate, A. D. 1031, the power and the glory of Cor' dova passed away. 
Cor' dova continued to be a separate Moorish kingdom until the year A. D. 123S, when it was 
taken and almost wholly destroyed by the impolitic zeal of Ferdinand IIJ. of Castile. It has 
never since recovered its previous prosperity ; and its population has diminished since the 11th 
century, from five hundred thousand to less than forty thousand. (Map No. XHI.) 

2. Khorassan\ (the " region of the sun,"; is a province of Modern Persia, at the south-eastern 
extremity of the Caspian Sea, inhabited by Persians proper, Turkmans, and Kurds. The re- 
ligion is still Moham' medan. 



268 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

was sinking below its former level : the powers of destruction were 
more active than those of improvement ; and the calam- 

BYZANTiNE ities of War were imbittered by the more permanent 
EMPIRE, g^-jg q£ ^-^-j ^^^^ ecclesiastical tyranny."^ It was daily 
becoming more and more separated from Western Europe ; its re- 
lations, both of peace and war, being chiefly with the Saracens, who, 
in the period of their conquests, overran all Asia Minor, and were 
forming permanent establishments within sight of Constantinople. 
Toward the close of the tenth century, however, a brief display of 
vigor in the Byzantine princes, Niceph' orus, Zimisus, and Basil II., 
repelled the Saracens, and extended the Asiatic boundaries of the 
empire as far south as Antioch, and eastward to the eastern limits 
of Armenia; but twenty-five years after the death of Basil (1025) 
his effeminate successors were suddenly assaulted by the Turks or 
Turcomans, a new race of Tartar barbarians of the Mussulman faith, 
whose original seats were beyond the Caspian Sea, along the northern 
boundaries of China. During the first invasion of the Turks, under 
their leader Togrul, (1050) one hundred and thirty thousand 
Christians were sacrificed to the religion of the prophet. His suc- 
cessor, Alp Arslan, the " valiant lion," reduced Georgia* and Arme- 
nia, and defeated and took captive the Byzantine emperor Bomanus 
Diog' enes ; and succeeding princes of the Turkish throne gathered 
the fruits of a lasting conquest of all the provinces beyond the Bos'- 
porus and Hellespont. 

4. Turning to the West, to examine the condition of the three 
great divisions of the empire of the Carloviugians — Italj^, Grermany, 
and Gaul, — we find there but the wrecks of former greatness. In 
Italy, the dukes, the governors of provinces, and the leaders of 

IV CONDI- ^I'^^i^^) were possessed of far greater power than the 

TioN OF reigning monarch. Having for a long period perpetu- 

iTALi. ^^^^ their dignities in their families, they had become 

in fact petty tyrants over their limited domains ; ever jealous of the 

royal authority, and dreading the loss of their privileges, they con- 

1. Georgia is between the Caspian and the Black Sea, having Circassia on the north and Ar- 
menia on the south. This country was annexed to the Roman empire by Pompey, in the year 
65 B. C. During the 6lh and 7th centuries it was a theatre of contest between the Greek t ra- 
pire and the Persians. In the 8Lh century a prince of the Jewish family of the Bagrat' ides es- 
tablished there a monarchy which, with few interruptions, continued in his line down to the 
commencement of the 1 9th century. In 1801 the emperor Paul of Russia declared himself, at 
the request of the Georgian prince, sovereign of Georgia. 

a. Gibbon, iv. 4. 



Chap. II] MIDDLE AGES. 269 

spired against their sovereign as often as he showed an inclination to 
rescue the people from the oppressive exactions of their masters. In 
the early part of the tenth century they arose against Berenger, 
duke of Friiili/ who had )3een proclaimed king, and offered the 
crown to the prince of Bur' gundy, who during two years united the 
government of Italy to that of Switzerland.^ (923-925.) Soon 
abandoning him, the turbulent nobles elevated to the throne Hugh, 
count of Provence ;' and finally Italy, exhausted by the animosities 
and struggles of the aristocracy, made a voluntary surrender of the 
kingdom to Otho the Great, the Saxon prince of Germany, who, in 
the year 962, was crowned at Milan with the iron crown of Lom'- 
bardy, and at Rome with the golden crown of the empire. 

5. During several succeeding centuries the German emperors were 
nominally recognized as sovereigns of the greater part of Italy ; but 
as they seldom crossed the Alps, their authority was soon reduced 
to a mere shadow The pretensions of the court of Rome were op- 
posed to those of the German princes ; and during the quarrels that 
arose between the Guelfs and Ghibellines,* — the former the adherents 
of Rome, and the latter of Germany — Italy was thrown into the 
greatest confusion. While some portions were under the immediate 
jurisdiction of the German emperor, a large number of the dukes, 
marquises, counts, and prelates, residing in their castles which they 

1. Friuli is an Italian province at the head of the Adriaf ic, and at the north-eastern ex- 
tremity of Italy. 

2. Stoitzerland, anciently called Helvetia, is an inland and mountainous country of Europe, 
having the German States on the north and east, Italy on the south, and France on the west. 
Julius Ca3S:ir reduced the Helvetians to submission 15 years B. C. ; after which the Romans 
founded in it several flourishing cities, which were afterwards destroyed by the barbarians. In 
the beginning of the 5th century the Burgun' dians overran the western part of Switzerland, 
and fixed their seats around the lake of Geneva, and on the banks of the Rhone and the Saone. 
Fifty years later tlie Aleman'ni overran the eastern part of Switzerland, and a great part of 
Germany, overwhelming the monuments of Roman power, and blotting out the Christianity 
whicii Rome had planted. At the close of the fifth century the Aleman' ni were overthrown 
by Clovis;— the first Burgun' dian empire fell A. D. 535 ; and for a long period afterward Hel- 
vetia formed a part of the French monarchy. The partition of the dominions of Charlemagne 
threw Switzerland into the German part of the empire. In the year 1307 the three forest 
cantons, Uri, Schwylz, and Unterwalden, entered into a confederacy against the tyranny of the 
Austrian house of Ilapsburg, then at the head of the German empire. Other cantons from 
time to time joined the league, or were conquered from Austria ; but it was not till the lime 
of Napoleon that all the present existing cantons were brougiit into the confederacy. (Maps 
No. XIV. and XVII.) 

3. Provence, see p. 271. 

4. These party names, obscure in origin, were imported from Germany. In the wars of 
Frederic Barbarossa, (the Redbeard,) the Guelfs were the champions of liberty : in the 
crusades which the popes directed against that prince's unfortunate descendants they were 
merely the partisans of the Church. The name soon ceased to signify principles, and merely 
served the same purpose as a watchword, or the color of a standard. 



270 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

had strongly fortified against the depredating inroads of the Normans, 
Saracens, and Hungarians, exercised an almost independent authority 
within their limited domains ; while a number of petty republics, the 
most important of which were Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, fortifying 
their cities, and electing their own magistrates, set the authorit}^ of 
the pope, the nobles, and the emperor, equally at defiance. Such 
was the confused state of Italy in the central period of the Middle 
Ages. 

6. Germany, at the beginning of the tenth century, under the rule 
of a minor, Louis lY., the last of the Carlovingian family, was har- 
assed by frequent invasions of the Hungarians ; while 
DiTioN OF the six dukedoms into which the country was divided, 
GERMANv. ^.^ . gaxony,^ Thurin' gia,' Franconia,' Bavaria,* Suabia,"^ 
and Lorraine,® appeared like so many distinct nations, ready to de- 
clare war against each other. The dukes, originally regarded as 
ministers and representatives of their king, had long been encroach- 
ing on the royal prerogatives, and by degrees had arrogated to them- 
selves such an increase of power, that the dignities temporarily con- 
ferred upon them became hereditary in their families. They next 
seized the royal revenues, and made themselves masters of the people 

1. Saxony, the most powerful of the ancient duchies of Germany, embraced, at the period 
of its greatest development, the whole extent of northern Germany between the mouths of the 
Rhine and the Oder. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Thiirin' gia was in the central part of Germany, west of Prussian Saxony. In the 13th 
c(Situry it was subdivided among many petty princes, and incorporated with other States, after 
which the name fell gradually into disuse. It is still preserved, in a limited sense, In the 
Thurin' frian forest, a hilly and woody tract in the interior of Germany, on the northern con- 
fines of Bavaria. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Franconia was situated on both sides of the river Maine, and is now included mostly 
within the limits of Bavaria. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. £rti'dria— comprising most of the Vindelicia and Nor' icum of the Romans, is a country 
in the southern pari of Germany. It was anciently a duchy— afterwards an electorate— and has 
now the rank of a kingdom. {Map No. XVII.) 

.5. Suahia, of which Ulm was tl>e capital, was in the south-western part of Geraiany, west 
of Bavaria, and north of Switzerland. It is now included in Baden, Wurtembnrg, and Bavaria. 
(Map No. XVII.) 

6. Lorraine, (German Lotharingin ,^ so called from Lotliaire II., to whom this part of tlie 
conntry fell in the division of the empire between him and his brothers Louis II. and Charles, 
in the year 854, eleven years after the treaty of Verdun, (see p. 260,) was divided into Upper 
and Lower Lorraine, and extended from the confines of Switzerland, westward of the Rhine, 
to its mouths, and the mouths of the Scheldt. (Skelt.) A part of the Lower Lorraine was af- 
terwards embraced in the French province of Lorraine, (see Map No. XIII.,) and is now com- 
prised in the departments of the Meuse, tlie Vosges, the Moselle, and the Meurthe. Lorraine 
was for centuries a subject of dispute betv/een France and Germany. 

The relative position of the six German dukedoms was therefore as follows: — Saxony occu- 
pied the northern portions of Germany ; Thurin' gia and Franconia the centre ; Bavaria the 
south-eastern ; Suabia the south-western ; and Lorraine the north-western. {Maps No. XIIl. 
and XVII.) 



Chap. II] MIDDLE AGES. 271 

and their lands. On the death of Louis IV., (A. D. 911,) they set 
aside the legitimate claimant, and elected for their sovereign one of 
their own number, Conrad, duke of Franconia. His reign of seven 
years was passed almost wholly in the field, checking the incursions 
of the Hungarians, or quelling the insurrections of the other duke- 
doms against his authority. On his death (A. D. 918), Henry I., 
surnamed the Fowler, duke of Saxony, was elected to the throne, 
which his family retained little more than a century. (Until 1024.) 
The Saxon rulers of Germany, however, were not, like Charlemagne, 
the sovereigns of a vast empire ; but rather the chiefs of a confeder- 
acy of princes, reckoned of superior authority in matters of national 
concern, while the nobles still managed their provincial administra- 
tion mostly in their own way. The history of the little more than 
nominal sovereigns of Germany, therefore, during this period, con- 
tains but little of the history of the German people. 

7. In France, the royal authority, at the beginning of the tenth 

centurv, exercised an influence still more feeble than in 

'^ , VI. cox- 

Germany, and was little more than an empty honor, dition of 

Charles the Simple, whose name bespeaks his character, 1'Ra>ce. 

was the nominal sovereign ; but four other princes in Gaul, besides 

himself, bore the title of king, — those of Lorraine, Transjurane- 

Bnrgundy,^ Provence,^ and Brittany;^ — while in other parts of the 

country, powerful dukes and counts governed their dominions with 

absolute independence. At length, in the year 920, an assembly of 

nobles formally deposed Charles, but he continued his nominal reign 

nearly three years longer, while the people and the nobility were 

scarcely conscious of his existence. 

1. Transjuranc- B ur' g-undy, is that portion of Bur' gundy that was embraced in Switzerland — 
beyond the Ju7-a, or western Alps. 

2. Provence was in the south-eastern part of France, on the Mediterranean, bounded on the 
east by Italy, north by Dauphiny, and west by Langedoc, Greek colonies were founded here 
at an early period, (see JNIarseilles, p. 157,) and the Romans, having conquered the country, 
(B. C. 124,) gave it the name of Provincia, (the province,) whence its later name was derived. 
After the three-fold division of the empire of Louis le Debonnaire, the son and successor of 
Charlemagne, by the treaty of Verdun in 843, (see p. '-GO,) Provence fell to Lothaire ; but it 
afterwards became a separate kingdom, under the name of the kingdom of Aries. In 124G it 
passed to the house of Anjou by marriage ; and in 1481 Louis XI. united it to the dominioiis 
of the French crown. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. Brittany, or Bretagne, was one of the largest provinces of France, occupying Ihe pe;:in- 
sula at the north-western extremity of the kingdom, and joined on the cast by Poitou, Anjou, 
Maine, and Normandy. It now forms the five departments, Finisterre, Cotes du Nord, (coat- 
doo-nor) Morbihan, Ille and Vilaine, and Lower Loire. Brittany is supposed to have derived 
its name from the Britons, who, expelled from England by the Anglo Saxons, took refuge 
here in the fiftli century. It formed one of the duchies of France till it was united to the 
crown by Francis I. in 1532. {Map No. XIII.) 



272 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

8. The only really important event of French history during the 
tenth century was the final settlement of the Northmen in that part 
of Neustria,^ which received from them the name of Normandy.'^ 
In the year 911, during the reign of Charles the Simple, the Norman 
chief Rollo, who had made himself the terror of the West, ascended 
the Seine with a formidable fleet, and laid siege to Paris. After the 
j^urchase of a brief truce, Charles made him the tempting offer, to 
cede to him a vast province of France, in which he might establish 
himself on condition that he would abstain from ravaging the rest of 
the kingdom, acknowledge the sovereignty of the crown of France, 
and, together with his followers, make a public profession of Christi- 
anity. The terms were accepted : a region that had been comj^letely 
laid waste by the ravages of the Normans was now assigned to them 
for an inheritance ; and these ruthless warriors, abandoning a life of 
pillage and robbery, were soon converted, by the wise regulations of 
their chiefs, into peaceful tillers of the soil, and the best and bravest 
of the citizens of France. This remarkable event put an end to the 
war of Norman devastation, which, during a whole century, had de- 
populated western Germany, Gaul, and England. 

'9. Of the independent aristocracy of France, after the death of 
Charles the Simple, the most powerful were the counts of Paris, who, 
during the last few reigns of the Carlovingian princes, exercised 
little less than regal authority. At length, in the jear 987, on the 
death of Louis V., the fifth monarch after Charles the Simple, Hugh 
Capet, count of Paris, was proclaimed king by his assembled vassals, 
and anointed and crowned in the cathedral of llheims,^ by the arch- 
bishop of that city. The rest of France took no part in this election; 
and several provinces refused to acknowledge the successors of Hugh 
Capet, for three or four generations. The aristocracy still monopo- 

1. JSTfustria. On the death of Clovis A. D. 511, (see p. 25.5,) his four sons divided the Mero- 
vingian kingdom, embracing northern Gaiil and Germany, into two parts, calling the eastern 
.9ustrasia, and the western JVcustria,— the latter term being derived from the negative particle 
7ie "not," and Austria : — Austrasia, meaning the Eastern, and JSTcustria the Western monarchy. 
.Xcustria embraced that portion of modern France north of the Loire and west of the Meuse. 
{Map No. XIII.) 

2. J\rurma7idij was an ancient province of France, adjoining Brittany on the norlh-east. 
(See Map No. Xlll.) It became annexed to England through the accession of William, duke 
of Normandy, to the English throne, A. D. IOCS. (See p. 290.) Philip Augustus wrested it from 
John, and united it to France, in 1203. 

3. Rkcims, a city of France ninety-five miles north-east from Paris, was a place of consider- 
able importance under the Romans, who called it Durocortdrum. It become a bishopric 
before the irruption of the Franks, and received many privileges from the Merovingian kinga. 
Map No. XIII.} 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 273 

lized all the prerogatives of royalty ; and the power of the nobles 
alone flourished or subsisted in the State. The period of two hun- 
dred and forty years, — from the accession of Hugh Capet to that of 
Louis IX., or Saint Louis, — is described by Sismondi as " a long in- 
terregnum, during which the authority of king was extinct, although 
the name continued to exist." 

II. The Feudal System, Chivalry, and the Crusades. — 1. A 
glance at the state of Southern and Western Europe in the central 
period of the Middle Ages w^ill show that, with the waning power, 
and final overthrow, of the Carlovingian dynasty, a new order of 
things had arisen ; that kingdoms were broken into as many separate 
principalities as they contained powerful counts or barons ; that 
regularly-constituted authority no longer existed ; and that a numer- 
ous class of nobles, superior to all restraint, and involved in petty 
feuds with each other, oppressed their fellow subjects, and humbled 
or insulted their sovereigns, to whom they tendered an allegiance 
merely nominal. The rude beginnings of this state of society may 
be traced back to the germinating of the first seeds of order after 
the spread of barbarism over the Roman world ; its growth was 
checked under the first Carlovingians, who reduced the nobles to the 
lowest degradation ; but with the decline of royal authority in 
France, Grermany, and Italy, it started into new life and vigor, and, 
towards the end of the tenth centur}^, became organized under the 
name of the Feudal System. It maintained itself until ^ ^^^ 
about the end of the thirteenth century ; and during the fkupai^ 
period of its existence is the prominent object that en- ^^»'1''^-m- 
gages the attention of the historian of the Middle Ages. The unity 
of this portion of history will best be preserved by a brief historical 
outline of the system itself, and of the relations and events that 
grew out of it. 

2. The people who overturned the empire of the Romans, made a 
partition of the conquered lands between themselves and the original 
possessors ; but in what manner or by what principles the division 
was made cannot now be determined with certaint}^ ; nor can the 
exact condition in w^hich the Roman provincials were left be ascer- 
tained, as the records of none of the barbarous nations of Europe 
extend back to this remote period. It is, however, evident that the 
chiefs, or leaders of the conquering invaders, in order to maintain 
their acquisitions, annexed, to the apportionment of lands among 

18 



274 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

their followers, the condition that every freeman who received a share 
should appear in arms, when called upon, against the enemies of the 
community ; and military service was probably at first the only con- 
dition of the allotment. The immediate grantees of lands from the 
leading chief, or king, were probably the most noted warriors who 
served under him ; and these divided their ample estates among their 
more immediate followers or dependents, to be held of themselves 
by a similar tenure ; so that the system extended, through several 
gradations, from the monarchs down through all the subordinates in 
authority. Each was bound to resort to the standard of his imme- 
diate grantor, and thence to that of his sovereign, with a band of 
armed followers proportioned, in numbers, to the extent of the terri- 
tory which he had received. 

3. The primary division of lands among the conquerors, was 
probably allodial ; that is, they were to descend by inheritance from 
father to son ; but in addition to the lands thus distributed among 
the nation, others were reserved to the crown for its support and dig- 
nity; and the greater portion of the latter, frequently extending to en- 
tire counties and dukedoms, were granted out, sometimes as hereditary 
estates, sometimes for life, sometimes for a term of years, and on various 
conditions, to favored subjects, and especially to the provincial gov- 
ernors, who made under-grants of them to their vassals or tenants. 
On the failure of the tenant to perform the stipulated conditions, 
whether of military service, or of certain rents and payments, the 
lands reverted to the grantors; and as the word fend signifies "an 
estate in trust," hence the propriety of calling this the Feudal 
System. 

4. In a very imperfect state this system existed in France in the 
time of Charlemagne ; but that monarch, jealous of the ascendancy 
which the nobles had already acquired, checked it by ever}^ means in 
his power, — by suiFering many of the larger grants of dukedoms, 
counties, &c., to expire without renewal, — by removing the adminis- 
tration of justice from the hands of local officers into the hands of 
his own itinercint judges, — by elevating the ecclesiastical authority 
as a counterpoise to that of the nobility, — and by the creation of 
a standing army, which left the monarch in a measure independent 
of the military support of the great landholders. Thus the nobles, 
desisting from the use of arms, and abandoning the task of defend- 
ing the kingdom, soon became unable to defend themselves ; but 
when in the nintli and tenth centuries the royal authority was entire- 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AQES. 275 

ly prostrated, when the provinces were subject to frequent inroads 
of the Normans and Hungarians, and government ceased to aiFord 
protection to any class of society, the proprietors of Large estates 
found in their wealth a means of defence and security not within the 
reach of the great mass of the people. They converted their places 
of abode into impregnable castles, and covered their persons with 
knightly armor, jointed so as to allow a free movement of every part 
of the body ; and this protection, added to the increased physical 
strength acquired by constant military exercises, gave them an im- 
portance in war over hundreds of the plebeians by whom they were 
surrounded. In the confusion of the times, the governors of prov- 
inces, under the various titles of dukes, counts, and barons, usurped 
their governments as little sovereignties, and transmitted them by in- 
heritance, subject only to the feudal superiority of the king. 

5. Meanwhile the small allodial proprietors, or holders of lands in 
their own right, exposed to the depredating inroads of barbarians, 
or, more frequently, to the rapacity of the petty feudal lords, sunk 
into a condition much worse than that of the feudal tenantry. Ex- 
posed to a system of general rapine, without law to redress their in- 
juries, and without the royal power to support their rights, they saw 
no safety but in making a compromise with oppression, and were re- 
duced to the necessity of subjecting themselves, in return for pro- 
tection, to the feudal lords of the country. During the tenth and 
eleventh centuries a large proportion of the allodial lands in France, 
Grermany, and Italy, were surrendered by their owners, and received 
back again upon feudal tenures ; and it appears that the few who re- 
tained their lands in their own right universally attached themselves 
to some lord, although in these cases it was the privilege of the free- 
men to choose their own superiors. 

6. Such was the state of the great mass of European society when 
the feudal system had reached its maturity, in the tenth and eleventli 
centuries. Among the legal incidents and results that grew out of 
the feudal relation of service on the one side and protection on tho 
other, were those of reliefs^ or money paid to the lord by each vassal 
on taking a fief, or feudal estate, by inheritance ; fines, on a change 
of tenancy ; escheats, or forfeiture of the estate to the lord on ac- 
count of the vassals delinquency, or for want of heirs ; aids, or sums 
of money exacted by the lord on various occasions, such as the 
knighting of his eldest son, the marriage of his eldest daughter, or 
for the redemption of his person from prison ; ivardskip, or tlic 



276 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

privilege of guardianship of the tenant hy the lord during the mi- 
nority of the former, with the use of the profits of his estate ; mar- 
riage, or the right of a lord to tender a husband to his female wards 
while under age, or to demand the forfeiture of the value of the 
marriage. These feudal servitudes, which were unknown in the time 
of Charlemagne, distinguish the maturity of the system, and show 
the gradual encroachments of the strong upon the weak. 

7. The feudal government, in its best state, was a system of op- 
pression, which destroyed all feelings of brotherhood and equality 
between man and man : it was admirably calculated, when the nobles 
were united, for defence against the assaults of any foreign power ; 
but it possessed the feeblest bonds of political union, and contained 
innumerable sources of anarchy, in the interminable feuds of rival 
chieftains. It exerted a fatal influence on the character of society 
in general ; while individual man, in the person of the lord or baron, 
vfas doubtless improved by it ; and the great mass of the population 
of Europe, during the three or four centuries in which it was under 
the thraldom of this system, was sunk in the most profound igno- 
rance. Literature and science, confined almost wholly to the cloister, 
could receive no favor in the midst of turbulence, oppression, and 
rapine : judges and kings often could not write their own names : 
many of the clergy did not understand the liturgy which they daily 
recited : the Christianity of the times, " a dim taper which had need 
of snuffing," degenerated into an illiberal superstition ; and every- 
thing combined to fix upon this period the distinctive epithet of the 
Dark Ages. Still the sentiment of independence — the pride and 
consciousness of power — and the feelings of personal consequence 
and dignity with which the feudal state of society inspired the nobles, 
contributed to let in those first rays of light and order which dis- 
pelled barbarism and anarchy, and introduced the virtues of a better 
age. 

8. In the midst of confusion and crime, while property was held 

by the sword, and cruelty and iniustive reigned supreme, 

II. CHIVALRY. / . . p , . , "^ , , •, . , ^ 

the spirit or cliivaLry arose to turn back the tide or op- 
pression, and to plant, in the very midst of barbarism, the seeds of 
the most noble and the most generous principles. The precise time 
at which chivalry was recognized as a military institution, with out- 
ward forms and ceremonials, cannot now be ascertained; but the 
first notices we have of it trace it to that age when the disorders in 
the feudal system had attained their utmost point of excess, towards 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 277 

the close of the tenth century. It was then that some noble barons, 
filled with charitable zeal and religious enthusiasm, and moved with 
compassion for the wretchedness which they saw around them, com- 
bined together, under the solemnity of religious sanctions, with the 
holy purpose of protecting the weak from the oppression of the pow 
erful, and of defending the right cause against the wrong. 

9. The spirit and the institution of chivalry spread rapidly; 
treachery and hypocrisy became detestable ; while courtesy, magna- 
nimity, courage, and hospitality, became the virtues of the age ; and 
the knights, who were ever ready to draw their swords, at whatever 
odds, in defence of innocence, received the adoration of the populace, 
and, in public opinion, were exalted even above kings themselves. 
The meed of praise and esteem gave fresh vigor and purity to the 
cause of chivalry ; and under the influence of its spirit great deeds 
were done by the fraternity of valiant knights who had enrolled 
themselves as its champions. " The baron forsook his castle, and 
the peasant his hut, to maintain the honor of a family, or preserve 
the sacredness of a vow : it was this sentiment which made the poor 
serf patient in his toils, and serene in his sorrows : it enabled his 
master to brave all physical evils, and enjoy a sort of spiritual ro- 
mance : it bound the peasant to his master, and the master to his 
king ; and it was the principle of chivalry, above all others, that was 
needed to counteract the miseries of an infant state of civilization."'*' 

10. Though in the practical exemplifications of chivalry there was 
often much of error, yet its spirit was based upon the most generous 
impulses of human nature. '' To speak the truth, to succor the 
helpless and oppressed, and never to turn back from an enemy," was 
the first vow of the aspirant to the honors of chivalry. In an age 
of darkness and degradation, chivalry developed the character of 
woman, and, causing her virtues to be appreciated and honored, made 
her the equal companion of man, and the object of his devotion. 
" The love of God and the ladies," says Ilallam, " was enjoined as a 
single dut}^ He who was faithful and true to his mistress, was held 
sure of salvation in the theology of castles, though not of cloisters."^ 
In the language of another modern writer, " chivalry gave purity to 
enthusiasm, crushed barbarous selfishness, taught the heart to ex- 
pand like a flower to the sunshine, beautified glory with generosity, 
and smoothed even the rugged brow of war."^ A description of the 

a. Introduction to Froissart's Chronicles. b. Hallam's IMiddle Ages, p. 512. 

c. Jaraes'3 Clmvalry and llie Crusades, p. 31. 



278 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

various customs and peculiarities of cliivalry, as tliey grew up by de- 
grees into a regular institution, would be requisite to a full develop- 
ment of the character of the age, but we can only glance at these 
topics here. As chivalry was a military institution, its members 
were taken wholly from the military class, which comprised none but 
the descendants of the northern conquerors of the soil ; for, with few 
exceptions, the original inhabitants of the western Roman empire 
had been reduced to the condition of serfs, or vassals, of their bar- 
barian lords. 

11. The initiation of the German youth to the profession of arms 
had been, from the earliest ages, an occasion of solemnity ; and when 
the spirit of chivalry had established the order of knighthood, as 
the concentration of all that was noble and valiant in a warlike age, 
it became the highest object of every young man's ambition one day 
to be a knight. A long and tedious education, consisting of instruc- 
tion in all manly and military exercises, and in the first principles of 
religion, honor and courtesy, was requisite as a preparation for this 
honor. Next, the candidate for knighthood, after undergoing his 
preparatory fasts and vigils, passed through the ceremonies which 
made him a knight. Armed and caparisoned he then sallied forth 
in quest of adventure, displayed his powers at tournaments, and 
often visited foreign countries, both for the purpose of jousting with 
other knights, and for instruction in every sort of chivalrous knowl- 
edge. It cannot be denied, however, that the practice of knight- 
errantry, or that of wandering about armed, as the avowed cham- 
pions of the right cause against the wrong, gave to the evil-minded 
a very convenient cloak for the basest purposes, and that every ad- 
venture, whether just or not in its purpose, was too liable to be es- 
teemed honorable in proportion as it was perilous. But these were 
abuses of chivalry, and perversions of its early spirit. 

12. During the eleventh century we find that chivalry, although 
probably first appearing in Graul, had spread to all the surrounding 
nations. In Spain, the wars between the Christians and the Moors 
exhibited a chivalric spirit unknown to former times : about this 
period the institution of knighthood appears to have been introduced 
among the Saxons of England ; and it was first made known to the 
Italians, in the beginning of the eleventh century, by a band of 
knights from Normandy, whose religious zeal prompted them, as 
they were returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to under- 
take the relief of a small town besieged by the Saracens. As the 



Chap. II] MIDDLE AGES. 279 

feudal system spread over Europe, chivalry followed in its path. Its 
spirit, combined with religious entliusiasm, led to the crusades ; and 
it was during the progress of those holy wars, which we now proceed 
to describe, that it attained its chief power and injQuence. 

13. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and other hallowed localities in 
Palestine, had been common in the early ages of the church ; and 
towards the close of the tenth century they had increased ^^^ opigin 
to a perfect inundation, in consequence of the terror that of the 
arose from the almost universal expectation then enter- crusades. 
tained, of the approaching end of the world. ^ The idea originated 
in the interpretation given to the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, 
where it was announced that, after the lapse of a thousand years, 
Satan would be let loose to deceive the nations, and to gather them 
together to battle against the holy city, but that, after a little season, 
the army of the Deceiver should be destroyed by fire from heaven. 
But the dreaded epoch, the year 1000, passed by; yet the current 
of pilgrimage still continued to flow towards the East ; for fanati- 
cism had taken too strong hold of the minds of the people to be 
easily diverted from its course. 

14. After Palestine had fallen into the possession of the Turks, 
about the middle of the seventh century, (see p. 249,) the pilgrims 
to Jerusalem were subjected to every species of extortion and out- 
rage from this wild race of Saracen conquerors ; and the returning 
Christians spread through all the countries of Europe indignation 
and horror by the pathetic tales which they related, of the injuries 
and insults which they had suffered from the infidels. Among 
others, Peter the Hermit, a native of Amiens/ returning from a pil- 
gi-image to Palestine, where he had sji^ent much time in conferring 
with the Christians about the means of their deliverance, complained 
in loud terms of these grievances, and began to preach, in glowing 
language, the duty of the Christian world to unite in expelling the 
infidels from the patrimony of the Saviour. 

15. The pope. Urban II., one of the most eloquent men of the 
age, engaged zealously in the project, and at two general councils, 



1. Amiens is a fortified city of France in tlie ancient province of Picardy, seventy-two miles 
nortli from Paris. {Map No. XIII.) 

a. The archives of European countries contain a great number of charters of the tenth 
century, beginning with these words: j3ppropinquante fine mundf, — "As the end of the world 
is approaching." — Sisraondi's Roman Empire, ii. 25C. 



280 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

held at Placen' tia/ and Clermont,^ and attended by a numerous 

train of bishops and ecclesiastics, and by thousands of the laity, the 

multitude, harangued by the zealous enthusiasts of the cause, caught 

the spirit of those who addressed them, and pledged themselves, and 

all they possessed, to the crusade against the infidel possessors of the 

Holy Land. The flame of enthusiasm spread so rapidly throughout 

Christian Europe, that although the council of Clermont was held in 

November of the year 1095, yet in the following spring large bands 

of the crusaders, gathered chiefly from the refuse and 

FIRST dregs of the people, and consisting of men, women, and 

CRUSADE, children — of all ages and professions — and of many and 

distinct languages, — were in motion toward Palestine. 

16. Walter the Penniless, leading the way, was followed by Peter 
the Hermit ; but the ignorant hordes which they directed, marching 
without order and discipline, and pillaging the countries which they 
traversed, were nearly all cut off before they reached Constantinople ; 
and the few who passed over into Asia Minor fell an easy prey to 
the swords of the Turks. Immense bands that followed these hosts, 
mingling the motives of plunder, licentiousness and vice, with a 
foul spirit of fanatical cruelty, which proclaimed the duty of exter- 
minating all, whether Jews or Pagans, who rejected the Saviour, 
were utterly destroyed by the enraged natives of southern Germany 
and Hungary, through whose dominions they attempted to pass. The 
loss of the crusaders in this first adventure is estimated at three 
hundred thousand men.^ But while these undisciplined and barba- 
rous multitudes were hurrying to destruction, the flower of the chiv- 
alry of Europe was collecting — the genuine army of the crusade — 
under six as distinguished chiefs as knighthood could boast, headed 
by Grodfrey of Bouillon,^ one of the most celebrated generals of the 
age. In six separate bands they proceeded to Constantinople, some 

1. Placen' tia, now Piazenza, was a city of northern Italy, near the junction of the Trebia 
with the Po, thirty-seven miles south-east from Milan. When colonized by the Romans, 2J9 
B. C.,it was a strong and important city ; and it afforded them a secure retreat after the unfor- 
tunate battles of Ticinus and Treb' bia. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. Clermont, a city of France, in the ancient province of Auvergne, is eighty-two miles west 
from Lyons, and two hundred and eight south from Paris. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Bouillon was a small, woodj', and mountainous district, nine miles wide and eighteen 
long, now included in the duchy of Luxembourg, on the borders of France and Belgium. The 
town of Bouillon is fifty-miles north-west from the city of Luxembourg. Bouillon, when in 
the possession of Godfrey, was a dukedom. In order to supply himself with funds for his 
expedition to the Holy Land, Godfrey, who was likewise duke of Lower Lorraine, (note, 
p. 270,) mortgaged Bouillon to the bishop. (Map No. XIII.) 

a. Gibbon, iv. ll'o— 125. 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 281 

by way of Italy and the Adriat' ic, and others by way of the Danube ; 
but their conduct, unlike that of the first crusaders, was in general 
remarkable for its strict discipline, order, and moderation. 

17. Alex' ius, the Greek emperor of Constantinople, had before 
craved, in abject terms, assistance against the infidel Turks ; but 
now, when the Turks, occupied with other interests, no longer men- 
aced his frontier, his conduct changed, and alarmed by the vast 
swarms of crusaders who crossed his dominions, he strove, by treach- 
ery and dissimulation, and even by hostile annoyances, to diminish 
their numbers, and thwart their designs, and to wring from their 
chiefs acts of homage to his own person. With some of the chiefs, 
the crafty Greek succeeded ; but others spurned his proposals with 
indignation, and at the hazard of war resolved to maintain their in- 
dependent position ; and when at length the several detachments of 
the army of the crusaders passed into Asia, they left behind them 
in their treacherous auxiliaries, the Christians of the Byzantine em- 
pire, worse enemies than they had to encounter in the Turks. 

18. It is said that after the crusaders had united their forces in 
Asia Minor, and had been joined by the remains of the multitude that 
had followed Peter the Hermit, the number of their fighting men, 
without including those who did not carry arms, was six hundred 
thousand, and that, of these, the number of knights alone was two 
hundred thousand.^ At Nice,^ in Bithyn' ia,'' the capital of the 
Sultany of Koum,^ they first encountered the Turks, and after a siege 
of two months compelled the city to surrender, in spite of the efibrts 
of the Sultan, Soliman, for its relief. (A. D. 1097.) From Nice 
they set out for Syria ; and after having gained a victory over Soli- 
man near Dorihie' um,* in a march of five hundred miles they trav- 
ersed Lesser Asia, through a wasted land and deserted towns, without 
finding a friend or an enemy. 

19. The siege of Antioch, unparalleled for its difficulties, and the 

1. J^ice, called by the Romans KIc(b' a, was the capital of Bithyn' ia. The Turkish town of 
Isnik occupies the site of the Bithyn' ian city. {Map No. IV.) 

2. Bithyn' ia vras a country of Asia Minor, having the Euxine on the north, and the Propon- 
tis and Mysia on the west. {Map No. IV.) 

3. Roum (meaning the kingdovi of the Romans), was the name given by Soliman, sultan of 
Ihe Turks, to the present JVatolia, (the western part of Asia Minor,) when he invaded and 
became master of it in the 11th century. 

4. DorilcB'um was a city of Phrygia, on the confines of Bithyn' ia. The plain of Dorilae' um 
is often mentioned in history as the place where the armies of the Eastern empire assembled 
in their wars against the Turks. {Map No. IV.) 

a. James's History of the Crusades, p. 111. 



282 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

losses on botli sides, was the next obstacle to the onward marcli of 
the crusaders, now reduced to half the number that had been collect- 
ed at the capture of Nice ; but when the enterprise seemed hopeless, 
the town was betrayed into their hands by a Syrian renegado, (June 
1098.) A few daj^s later, the victors themselves, suffering the ex- 
tremity of privation and famine, were encompassed by a splendid 
Turkish and Persian army of three hundred thousand men; yet 
the Christians, collecting the relics of their strength, and urged on 
by a belief of miraculous interposition in their favor, sallied from 
the town, and in a single memorable day annihilated or dispersed 
the host of their enemies. 

20. While the siege of Antioeh was progressing, the Turkish princes 
consumed their time and resources in civil wars beyond the Tigris; 
and the caliph of Egypt, embracing the opjDortunity of weakness and 
discord to recover his ancient possessions, besieged and took Jerusa- 
lem. The Egyptian monarch offered to join his arms to those of 
the Christians, for the purpose of subduing all Palestine ; but it was 
evident that he purposed to enjoy the fruits of victory without par- 
ticipation ; and the answer of the crusading chiefs was firm and uni- 
form : " the usurper of Jerusalem, of whatever nation, was their 
enemy, and they would conquer the holy city with the sword of 
Christ, and keep it with the same." 

21. With an army reduced to less than fifty thousand armed men, 
the crusaders, in the month of May, 1099, proceeded from Antiocli 
towards Jerusalem. Marching between Mount Lib' anus^ and the 
sea-shore, they obtained by treaty a free passage through the petty 
Turkish principalities of Trip' oli,^ Sidon, Tyre,^ Acre,^ and Coesarea,^ 

1. To the four chains of mountains running parallel to the sea-coast through northern Syria 
or Palestine, the name LiV anus has been applied. To a chain farther east the Greeks gave 
the name Anti-Lib' amis. (Map No. VI.) 

2. Trip' oli, at this day one of the neatest towns of Syria, is a seaport, seventy-five miles 
north-west from Damascus. It was one of the most flourisliing seats of ancient literature, and 
contained an extensive library, numbering, it is said, one hundred thousand volumes, which 
was destroyed by the crusaders in the year ] 108. On this occasion the crusaders dispLayed the 
same fanatical zeal of which the Saracens have been accused, though some think unjustly, in 
the case of the Alexandrian library. A priest having visited an apartment in the library in 
which were several copies of the Koran, reported that it contained none but impious works of 
Mahomet ; and the whole was forthwith committed to the flames. (Map No. VI.) 

3. Tyre and Sidun, sec p, Gl, and Map No. VI. 

4. Acre is a town of Syria on the coast of the Mediterranean, at the north-eastern limit of 
the bay of Acre. Mount Carmel terminates on the south-western side of the bay. This town is 
rendered famous in modern history by its detennined and successful resistance to the arms of 
Napoleon in 1799. See p. 471. (Map No. VI.) 

5. Cmsarea was an ancient Roman town on the sea-coast of Palestine, thirty miles south-west 
from Acre. It was a flourishing city till A. D. 635, when it fell into the hands of the Saracens. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 283 

which promised to remain, for the time, neutral, and to follow the 
example of the capital. When at length the holy city broke upon 
the view of the Christian host, a sudden enthusiasm of joy filled 
every bosom ; past dangers, fatigues, and privations, were forgotten ; 
the name Jerusalem was echoed by every tongue ; and while some 
shouted to the sky, some knelt and prayed, some wept aloud, and 
some cast themselves down and kissed the earth in silence. But to 
the excess of rejoicing succeeded the extreme of wrath at seeing the 
city in the hands of the infidels ; and in the first ebullition of rage, 
a simultaneous attack was commenced on the town ; but a vigorous 
repulse taught the necessity of more judicious methods of assault. 

22. Passing over the details of the siege which followed, it is suf- 
ficient to state, that, within forty days, Jerusalem was taken by a 
desperate assault, and that the blood of seventy thousand Moslems 
washed the pavements of the captured city ; for the soldiers of the 
cross believed that they were doing God good service in exterminat- 
ing the blasphemous strangers ; and that all mercy to the infidels 
was an injury to religion. When the bloody strife was over, the 
leaders and soldiers, washing the marks of gore from their persons, 
and casting off their armor, in the guise of penitents and amid the 
loud anthems of the clergy, ascended the Hill of Calvary* on their 
knees, and proceeding to the holy sepulchre, with tears of joy kissed 
the stone which had covered the Saviour, and then ofi"ered up their 
prayers to the mild Teacher of that beautiful religion whose princi- 
ples are " peace and good will to men." Peter the Hermit, whose 
preaching had excited the crusade, had followed the army through 
all its perils ; and when he entered the city with the conquerors, the 
Christians of Jerusalem recognized the poor pilgrim who had first 
spoken to them words of hope, and promised them deliverance from 
the oppression of their Turkish masters. The reception which he 
now met with from the enthusiastic multitude, who in the fervor of 
their gratitude attributed all to him, and casting themselves at his 
feet, invoked the blessings of heaven on their benefactor, more than 
a thousand fold repaid the Hermit for all the anxiety, the toils, and 
dangers, which he had endured. The ultimate fate of this extraor- 
dinary individual is unknown. 

In 1101 it fell into the hands of the crusaders, when it sunk to rise no more. Ca3sar6a was the 
place where Peter converted Cornelius and his house, (Acts, x. 1,) and where Paul made his 
memorable speeches to Felix and Agrippa. (Acts, xxiv., xxv., xxvi.) 

1. Hill of Calvary. See description of Jerusalem p. 164, and Map No. VII.) 



284 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

'23. Jerusalem was now delivered from the hands of the infidels : 
the great object of the expedition was accomplished ; and the feudal 
institutions of Europe were introduced into Palestine in all their 
purity. Godfrey of Bouillon was chosen the first sovereign of Je- 
rusalem ; and the Christian kingdom thus established continued to 
exist nearly a century. Several minor States were established in 
the East by the crusaders, but as they seldom united cordially for 
mutual defence, and were continually assailed by powerful enemies, 
none of them were of long duration. Even during the sovereignty 
of Godfrey, the kingdom of Jerusalem, owing to the return of many 
of the crusaders, and their losses in battle, was left for a time to be 
supported by an army of less than three thousand men. But the 
spirit of pilgrimage was still rife ; and it is estimated that, between 
the first and second crusade, five hundred thousand people set out from 
Europe for Syria, in armed bands of several thousand men each ; and 
although the greater portion of them perished by the way, the few who 
reached their destination proved exceedingly serviceable in supporting 
the Christian cause, and in re-peopleing the devastated lands of Pales- 
tine. The period between the first and second crusade is remarkable 
for the rise, at Jerusalem, of the two most distinguished orders of 
knighthood — the Hospitallers, and the Red-Cross Knights, or Temp- 
lars. The valor of both orders became noted : the Hospitallers ever 
burned a light during the night, that they might always be prepared 
against the enemy ; and it is said that any Templar, on hearing the 
cry '' to arms," would have been ashamed to ask the number of the 
enemy. The only question was, " where are they ?" 

24, During nearly two centuries after the council of Clermont, 
each returning year witnessed a new emigration of pilgrim warriors 
for the defence of the Holy Land, although but six principal cru- 
sades followed the first great movement ; and all tliese were excited 
by some recent or impending calamity to Palestine. A detailed ac- 
count of these several crusades would only exhibit the perpetual 
recurrence of the same causes and effects ; and would appear but so 
many faint and unsuccessful copies of the original. Avoiding detail, 
we shall therefore speak of them only in general terms. 

25. Forty-eight years after the conquest of Jerusalem, the loss 

of the principal Christian fortresses in Palestine led to a 

SECOND second crusade, which was undertaken by Conrad III., 

CRUSADE, emperor of Germany, and Louis VII., king of France. 

(A. D. 1147.) The Pope Eugenius abetted the design, and com- 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 285 

missioned the eloquent St. Bernard to preach the cross through 
France and Germany. A vast army under Conrad took the lead in 
the expedition ; but not a tenth part ever reached the Syrian boun- 
daries. The army of French and Germans was but little more for- 
tunate ; and the poor remains of these mighty hosts, still led by the 
emperors of France and Germany, after reaching Jerusalem, joined 
the Christian arms in a fruitless siege of Damascus, which was the 
termination of the second crusade. 

26. Forty years after the second crusade, Jerusalem was taken by 
Saladiu, the Sultan of Egypt, whose authority was acknowledged 
also by the greater part of Syria and Persia. (A. D. 1187.) The 
loss of the holy city filled all Europe with consternation ; and new 
expeditions were fitted out for its recovery. France, ^^ ^.^^^ 
Germany, and England, joined in the crusade ; and the third 
armies of each country were headed by their respective c^u^ade. 
sovereigns, Philip Augustus, Frederic Barbarossa, and Richard I., 
surnamed the lion-hearted. Frederic, after defeating the Saracens 
in a pitched battle on the plains of Asia Minor, lost his life by im- 
prudently bathing in the river Orontes ]^ and liis army was reduced 
to a small body when it reached Antioch. The French and English, 
more successful than the Germans, besieged and took Acre, after a 
siege of twenty-two months (July, A. D. 1191); but as Richard 
and Philip quarrelled, owing to the latter's jealousy of the superior 
military prowess of the former, Philip returned home in disgust ; 
and Richard, after defeating Saladin in a great battle near Ascalon,^ 
and penetrating within sight of Jerusalem, concluded a three years' 
truce with his rival, and then set sail for his own dominions. (A. D. 
Oct. 1192.) 

27. The fourth crusade^ was undertaken at the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, (A. D. 1202,) at the instigation of ^^^ ^^^^ 
pope Innocent III. No great sovereign joined in the fourth 
enterprise; but the most powerful barons of France crusade. 

1. Jlscalov^ a very ancient city of the Philistines, was a sea-port town of the Mediterranean, 
forty-five miles south-west from .Jerusalem. Its ruins present a strange mixture of Syrian, Greek, 
Gothic, and Roman remains. There is not a single inhabitant within the old walls, which are 
still standing. The prophecy of Zechariah, " Ascaloa shall not be inhabited," and that of 
Ezekiel, "It shall be a desolation," are now actually fulfilled. {Map No. VI.) 

a. Some authorities say the Cydnus. Sec James's Chivalry and the Crusades, p. 239. 

b. Several important expeditions that were made to the Holy Land a short time previous to 
this, and that were promoted by the exhortations of pope Celestine III., are represented by 
eome writers as the fourth crusade. In this way some writers enumerate nine distinct crusades, 
some more, while others describe only six. 



286 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

took the cross, and gave the command to Boniface, marquis of 
Montserrat. ^ They hired the Venetians to transpoi-t them to Pales- 
tine, and agreed to recapture for them the cit}^ of Zara,^ in Dalmatia ; 
and this object was accomplished, while the pope in vain launched 
the thunders of the church at the refractory crusaders. Instead of 
sailing to Palestine, the expedition was then directed against the 
Greek empire, under the pretence of dethroning a usurper ; and the 
result was the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins, and the 
founding of a new Latin or lloman empire on the ruins of the By- 
zantine. (A. D. April 1204.) The new empire existed during a 
period of fifty-seven years, when the Grreeks partially recovered their 
authority. The fourth crusade ended without producing any benefit 
to Palestine. 

28. The fifth crusade, undertaken fourteen years after the fall of 

the Byzantine empire, was at first conducted by Andrew, 

VIII. THE J I ^ J 7 

FIFTH monarch of Hungary. The Christian army, after spend 
CRUSADE, -j^g some time in the vicinity of Acre, sailed to Egypt ; 
but after some successes, among which was the taking of Damietta,' 
ultimate ruin was the issue of the expedition. A few years later, 
(A. D. 1228), Frederic II. , emperor of G-ermany, then arrayed in 
open hostility with the pope, led a formidable army to Palestine, and 
after he had advanced some distance from Acre towards Jerusalem, 
concluded a treaty with the sultan Melek Kamel, whereby the holy 
city and the greater part of Palestine were yielded to the Christians. 
After the return of Frederic to Europe, new bands of crusaders pro- 
ceeded to Palestine : the sultan Kamel retook Jerusalem, but the 
Christians again obtained it by treaty. 

29. While these events had been passing in Palestine a new dy- 
nasty had arisen in the north of Asia, which for a time threatened 
a complete revolution of all the known countries of the world. In 

the early part of the thirteenth century Gengis Khan, 
IX. TARTAR ^Y^^ ^^^ ^£ ^ petty Mongol prince, had raised himself to 

CONQUESTS. r J & r 1 ^ 

be the lord of all the pastoral nations throughout the 
vast plains of Tartary. After desolating China,* and adding its five 

1. jMontserrat was an Italian raarquisate in western Lombardy, now included in Piedmont. 
The marquises of Montserrat, rising from small beginnings in the course of the tenth century, 
and gradually extending their territories, acted, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 
one of the most brilliant parts alloted to any reigning house in Europe. 

2. Zara, still the capital of Dalmatia, is a seaport on the eastern coast of the Adriat' ic, one 
hundred and fifty miles south-east from Venice. 

3. Damictta is on the Damietta, or principal eastern branch of the Nile, six miles from its mouth. 

4. China, a vast country of eastern Asia, may be uLmoat said to have no history of any iu- 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 287 

northern provinces to his empire, at the head of seven hundred thou- 
sand warriors ^ he invaded and overran the dominions of the sultan 
of Persia. His successor Octai directed his resistless arms west- 
ward, under the conduct of his general Baton, who, in the course of 
six years, led his warriors, in a conquering march, from east to west, 
over a fourth part of the circumference of the globe. The inmi- 
dating torrent, passing north of the territories of the Byzantine em- 
pire, left them unharmed ; but it rolled with all its fury upon the 
more barbarous nations of Europe. A great part of Kussia^ was 
desolated ; and both Kiev^ and Moscow,^ the ancient and modern 
capital, were reduced to ashes : the Tartars penetrated into the heart 
of Poland,* and as far as the borders of Germany, whence they 
turned to the south and spread over the plains of Hungary. Already 
the remote nations of the Baltic trembled at the approach of these 
barbarian warriors ; and Germany, France, England, and Italy, were 
on the point of arming in the common defence of Christendom, when 
Baton and the five hundred thousand warriors who still accompanied 
him were recalled to Asia by the death of their sovereign. (A. D. 
1245.) 

30. Among the many tribes and nations that had been driven from 
their original seats by the great Tartar inundation, were the Coras- 
mins, embracing numerous hordes of Tartar origin, that had attached 
themselves to the fortunes of the sultan of Persia. They now pre- 
cipitated themselves upon Syria and Palestine, and massacred indis- 

lerest to the general reader, it has so few revolutions or political changes to record. The 
authentic history of the Chinese begins with the compilations of Confucius, who was born 
B. C. 550. From that period the annals of the empire have been carefully noted and preserved 
in an unbroken line to the present day— forming a series of more than five hundred volumes 
of uninteresting chronological details. 

1. Russia, the largest, and one of the most powerful empires, either of ancient or modern 
times, extends from Behring's straits and the Pacific on the east, to the Gulf of Bothnia on the 
west,— a distance of nearly six thousand miles, with an average breadth of about flflcen huu- 
dred miles. In this immense empire nbont forti/ distinct languages are in use, having attached 
to them a great number of diflferent dialects. In the year 1535 the extent of the Russian do- 
minions was estimated at thirty-seven thousand German square miles; but in the year 1850 it 
had increased to ten times that amount. (For early history of Russia see p. 309.) 

2. Kiev, or Kiow, the capital of the modem Russian province of the same name, is on the 
Dnieper, two hundred and twenty miles north of Odes' sa, the nearest port on the Black Sea. 
Kiev was the former residence of the grand dukes of Russia — the earliest seat of the Christian 
religion in Russia — and for a considerable period the capital of the empire. (J\Iap No. XVIT.) 

3. Moscow, still one of the capitals of the Russian empire, and the grand entrepot of its in- 
ternal commerce, is situated on the navigable river Moskwa, a branch of the Volga, four hun- 
dred miles south-east from St. Petersburg. It was founded in the year 1147. {Map No. XII.) 

4. Poland, see p. 311. 
a. Gibbon, iv. 251. 



288 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

crimmately Turks, Jews, and Christians who opposed them. Jeru- 
salem was taken ; and it is said every soul in it was put to the sword ; 
but at length the Turks and Christians, uniting their forces, utterly 
defeated the Corasmins, and thus delivered Palestine from one of 
the most terrible scourges that had ever been inflicted on it. 

31. The ravages of the Corasmins in Palestine called forth 

the sixth crusade, which was led by Louis IX., king 
SIXTH of France, commonly called St. Louis. He began by an 
CRUSADE. a^t.ack on Egypt ; but after some successes he was de- 
feated, made prisoner when enfeebled by disease, and forced to 
purchase his liberty by the payment of an immense ransom. (A. D. 
1250.) Twenty years later St. Louis embarked on a second cru- 
sade — the last oi those great movements for the redemption of the 
Holy Land. The fleet of Louis being driven by a storm into Sar- 
dinia, here a change of plans took place, and it was resolved to at- 
tack the Moors of Africa. The French landed near Carthage, and 
took the city ; but a pestilence soon carried off Louis and the greater 
portion of his army, when the expedition was abandoned. 

32. From this time the fate of the Eastern Christians grew daily 
more certain ; and in the year 1291 a Turkish army of two hundred 
thousand men appeared before the walls of Acre, the last strong- 
hold of the crusaders in Palestine. After a tedious siege the city 
was taken ; and thus the last vestige of the Christian power in Syria 
was swept away. The crusades had occupied a period of nearly two 
centuries, and had led two millions of Europeans to find their graves 
in Eastern lands ; and yet none of the objects of these expeditions 
had been accomplished; — a sad commentary upon the folly and fa- 
naticism of the age. The effects of these hoty wars upon the state 
of European society will be referred to in a subsequent chapter.^- 

III. English History. — 1. Our last reference to the history of 

England was to that period rendered brilliant by the 

AFTER THE I'^igu of Alfred the Great, the real founder of the Eng- 

DEATH OF lish monarchy ; and we now proceed to give a brief but 

ALFRED. connected outline of the continuation of English history 

during the central period of the Middle Ages, which has just passed 

in review before us. 

2. After the death of Alfred, in the first year of the tenth cen- 
tury, (A. D. 901,) England, still a prey to the ravages of the Danes, 

a. See Part III. ch. ix. of the University Edition. 



Chap. ILj MIDDLE AGES. 289 

and intestine disorder, relapsed into confusion and barbarism ; and 
under a succession of eight sovereigns,a from the time of Alfred, its 
history presents little that is important to the modern reader. 
During the reign of Ethelred II., the last of these rulers, the 
Danes and Norwegians, led by Sweyn king of Denmark,^ acquired 
possession of the greater portion of the kingdom ; and on several 
occasions Ethelred purchased a momentary respite from their rav- 
ages by large bribes, which only increased their avidity, and insured 
their return. At length the weak and cruel monarch ordered the 
massacre of all the Danes in the Saxon territories. (A. D. 1002.) 
The execution of the barbarous mandate occasioned the renewal of 
hostilities : the English nobles, in contempt of their sovereign, of- 
fered the crown to Sweyn ; while Ethelred fled for refuge to the 
court of Richard, dukQ of Normandy, whose sister he had married. 
On the death of Sweyn, in the year 1014, the Danish army in Eng- 
land chose his son Canute to succeed him ; while the Saxon chiefs, 
with their wonted inconstancy, recalled Ethelred. On the death of 
the latter, his son Edmund, surnamed Ironside, from his hardihood 
and valor, was chosen king by the English ; but by his death, (A. D. 
1016,) after a few months, Canute, in accordance with a previous 
treaty, was left in undisturbed possession of the whole of England. 

3. Canute, surnamed the Great, proved to be the most powerful 
monarch of the age. By marrying Emma, the widow of Ethelred, 
he conciliated the vanquished Britons, and disarmed the hostility of 
the duke of Normandy ; while the earl of Godwin, the most power- 
ful of the English barons, was gained to his interests, by receiving 
the hand of the king^s daughter. In the year 1025 he subdued 
Sweden, and Norway^ two years later, and on his death (Nov. 1036) 
he left his vast possessions of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Eng- 
land, to be divided among his children. His administration of the 
government of England was at first harsh ; but he gradually emerged 
from his original barbarism, embraced Christianity, encouraged liter- 
ature, and adopted some wise institutions for the benefit of his 
Anglo Saxon subjects. 

4. After the death of Canute, two of his sons, Harold and Hardi- 
canute, reigned in succession over England; after which, in 1041, 

1. Denmark, Sweden, and J^orway ; — see p. 398. 

2. Sweden and Jforway. See Denmark, p. 308. 

a. Edward I. the Elder, 901. Athelsfan, 925. Edmund I., 941. Edred, 04G. Edwy, 955, 
Edgar, 959. E-Uvard I!., the Marlyr, 975. Ethelred II., 978. 



290 MODERN HISTORY. [Paut II. 

the crown returned to the ancient Saxon family, in the person of 
Edward the Confessor, a younger son of Etheh-ed. The mild char^ 
acter of Edward endeared him to his Saxon subjects, notwithstand- 
ing the partiality which he showed to his Norman favorites ; but his 
reign of twenty-five years was weak and inglorious, and it was dis- 
turbed by the rebellion of the earl of Godwin, by occasional hostili- 
ties with the Welsh and Scotch, and by intrigues for the succession. 
On his death, (106G,) Harold, son of Godwin, took possession of the 
throne ; but scarcely had he overcome his brother Tostig, who dis- 
puted the supremacy with him, when he found a more formidable 
competitor in William, duke of Normandy, to vfhom the late king 
had either bequeathed or purposed the succession. On the 25th of 
September, 1066, Harold gained a great victory over his brother; 
but, three days later, William landed in Sussex,' at the head of sixty 
thousand men, and on the fourteenth of October fought 
II. NORMAN .^.j^ Harold the bloody battle of Hastings,' which ter- 

CONOUESTS. 

minated the Saxon dynasty, and put William the Nor- 
man in possession of the throne of England. Harold was killed iu 
battle ; the English army was nearly destroyed, and a fourth part of 
the Normans slain. The victory gave to William the title of the 
Conqueror ; and the subjugation of the realm by him is termed, iu 
English history, the Norman conquest. 

5. This conquest, however, was gradual, for the immediate results 
of the battle of Hastings gave to William less than a fourth part of 
the kingdom ; and his wars for the subjugation of the West, the 
North, and the East, were protracted during a period of seven years. 
William treated the English as rebels for appearing in the field 
against him, and distributed their lands among his Norman followers. 
To this distribution, the titles and revenues of many of the English 
nobility owe their origin.^ The northern Saxons made a vigorous 
resistance, and William treated them with a severity in proportion 
to the valor and pertinacity of their defence — laying waste the 
country with fire and sword, until, in some countries, the danger of 
rebellion was removed by a total dearth of inhabitants. 



— T is a southern county of England, on the English channel, west of Kent. 

A), listings, now a town of ten thousand inhabitants, is fifty-four miles south-east from Lon- 
don. It is pleasantly situated in a vale, surrounded on every side, except toward the sea, by hilla 
and clifls. On a hill east of the town are still to be seen banks and trenches, supposed to h<ive 
been the work of the Normans at the time of the invasion. (Map No, XVI.) 

a. See Note:^, Warwick, Richmond, &c., p. 306. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 291 

6. The foundations of the feudal system had existed in England 
before the conquest ; but the distribution of the conquered lands 
among the Norman followers of William, gave that prince the op- 
portunity of fully establishing the system as it then existed, in its 
maturitj^, on the continent. Preparatory to the introduction of the 
feudal tenures, William caused a survey to be made of all the lands 
in the kingdom, the particulars of which were inserted in what is 
called the Doomsday Book, or Book of Judgment, which is still in 
being. Under the iron rule of the conqueror the Anglo Saxons be- 
came vassals of their Norman lords ; the name Saxon was made a 
term of reproach ; and the Saxon language was regarded as barba- 
rous ; while the Norman-French idiom was employed in all the acts 
of administration. 

7. On the death of William, in the year 1087, his second son, 
William Rufus, took possession of the throne, to the prejudice of his 
elder brother Robert, then absent in Normand}^ His reign, and 
that of his brother and successor, Henry I., are distinguished by few 
events of importance ; but both plundered the kingdom : an ancient 
Saxon chronicle says that the former was " loathed by nearly all his 
people, and odious to God ;" and of the latter it is said that "justice 
was in his hands a source of revenue, and judicial murder a frequent 
instrument of extortion." 

8. Henry had married a Saxon princess ; and to his daughter Ma- 
tilda, by this marriage, he designed to leave the crown ; but his 
nephev>^ Stephen defeated his intentions by immediately seizing the 
vacant throne on the death of Henry. (1135.) A long civil war 
that followed was terminated by a general council of the kingdom 
which adopted Henry Plantagenet,^ Matilda's son, as the successor 
of Stephen. One year later the boisterous life and wretched reign 
of Stephen were brought to a close, when Henry II., the first of 
the Plantagenet dynasty, ascended the throne of England. (A. D. 
1154.) 

9. By inheritance and marriage, Henry possessed, in addition to 
the duchy of Normandy, the fairest provinces of northwestern 

1. Plantagenet is the surname of the kin^^s of England from Henry II. to Richard III. 
inclusive. Antiquarians are much at a loss to account for the origin of this name ; and the 
best derivation tliey can find for it is, that Fulk, the first earl of Anjou of that name, being 
stung with remorse for some wicked action, went in pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a work of 
atonement ; where, being soundly scourged with broom twigs, which grew plentifully on the 
spot, he ever after took the surname of Piantagcncf, or broomstaUi, which was retained by his 
uoblc posterity. (Encyclopedia.) 



^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

France ; and these, in connection with his English dominions, ren- 
in REDuc- ^6i'<2^ ^^"^ ^^^^ ^f *^i^ i^^o^^ powerful monarchs in chris- 
TioN OF tendom. He also reduced Ireland' to a state of subjec- 
iRELAND. ^-^^^ ^^^^ formally annexed it to the English crown, al- 
though the complete conquest of that country was not effected until 
nearly four centuries later. By a wise and impartial administration 
of the government, Henry gained the affections of his people ; but he 
was long engaged in a kind of spiritual warfare with the pope, and 
the close of his life was clouded by domestic misfortunes. His sons, 
instigated by their mother, and aided by Louis VII., king of France, 
repeatedly rebelled against him ; and he finally died of a broken 
heart, after a long reign of thirty -five years. (A. D. 1189.) 

10. Henry was succeeded by his eldest son Richard, surnamed 
the Lion-hearted, who immediately on his accession, after plundering 
his subjects of an immense sum of money, embarked on a crusade 
to the Holy Land. After filling the world with his renown, being- 
wrecked in his homeward voyage, and travelling in disguise through 
G-ermany, he was seized and imprisoned, and only obtained his lib- 
erty by an immense ransom, which was paid by his subjects. The 

1. Ireland is a large island west of England, from which it is separated by the Irish Sea and 
St. George's Channel. Its divisions, best known in history, are the four great provinces, Ulster 
in the north, Leinster in the east, Connaught in the west, and Munster in the south. 

Irish historians speak of Greek, Phoenician, Scotch, Spanish, and Gaulic colonies in Ireland, 
before the Christian era ; for which, however, there is no historical foundation. The oldest 
authentic Irish records were written between the tenth and twelfth centuries ; but some of 
them go back, with some consistency, as far as the Christian era. The early inhabitants of 
Ireland were evidently more barbarous than even those of Britain. In the fifth century Christi- 
anity was introduced among them by St. Patrick, a native of North Britain, who in his youth 
Imd been carried a captive into Ireland ; but the new faith did not flourish until a century or 
two later; and it appears that, even then, the learning of the Irish clergy did not extend be- 
yond the walls of the monasteries. In the ninth and tenth centuries the Danes made them- 
selves masters of the greater part of the coasls of the island, while the interior, divided among 
a number of barbarous and hostile chiefs, was agitated by internal wars, which no sense of 
common dangers could interrupt. In the early part of the eleventh century, Brian Boru, king 
of Munster, imited the greater part of the island under his sceplre, and expelled the Danes ; 
but soon after his death, A. D. 1014, the kingdom was again divided ; and sanguinary wars 
continued to rage between opposing princes until the invasion by Henry II. of England, in the 
year 1169. So early as 1155 Henry had projected the conquest of Ireland, and had obtained 
from pope Adrian IV^ full permission to invade and subdue the Irish, for the purpose of re- 
forming them. The grant was accompanied by a stipulation for the payment to St. Peter, of a 
penny annually from every house in Ireland,— this being the price for which the independence 
of the Irish people was coolly bartered away. Henry, however, conquered only the four 
counties Dublin, ISIeath, Loulh, and Kildare, l>eing a part of Leinster, on the eastern coast. 
In 1315 Edward Bruce, brother of t!ie king of Scotland, being invited over by the Irish, landed 
in Ireland, and caused himself to bo proclaimed king ; but not being well supported, he was 
finally defeated and killed in the battle of Dundalk, in the year 1318, after which the Scotch 
forces were withdrawn. It was not until the time of Cromwell that English supremacy was 
fully established in ever}' part of the island. (Map No. XVI.) 



I 



Chap. 11] MIDDLE AGES. 2^ 

reign of this famous knight is chiefly signalized by his deeds in Pal- 
estine, and is of little importance in English history. 

IL Richard was succeeded by his profligate brother John, sur- 
named Lackland. (A. D. 1199.) In a long struggle with Philip 
Augustus of Fiance, John lost most of his continental possessions : 
by stripping the church of its treasures he made the pope his enemy; 
and after a vain attempt to brave the storm of his vengeance, he 
made a cowardly submission, swore allegiance to the pope, and 
agreed to hold his kingdom tributary to the holy see. The barons, 
provoked by the tyranny and vices of their sovereign, next took up 
arms against liim : they received with indignation the pope^s decla- 
ration in favor of his vassal, — took possession of London, — and 
finally compelled the king to yield to their demands, and to sign the 
Magna Charta^ or Great Charter of rights and liberties, which laid 
the first permanent foundation of British freedom.^ John attempt- 
ed to annul the conditions imposed, and, being absolved by the pope 
from the oath wdiich he had taken to the barons, he collected an 
army of mercenary soldiers from Germany, and proceeded to lay 
waste the kingdom ; but the barons proffered the crown to Louis, the 
eldest son of the French monarch, who came over with a large army to 
enforce his claims, when the sudden death of John arrested impending 
dangers, and prevented England from becoming a province of France. 

12. On the death of John, his eldest son, Henry III., then in 
the tenth year of his age, was acknowledged king by the nobility and 
the people. Henry was a weak and fickle sovereign ; and during his 
long reign of more than half a century, the country was agitated by 
internal commotions, caused by the king's prodigality, favoritism, op- 
pressive exactions, and continual violation of the people's rights in direct 
opposition to the principles of the Great Charter. Again the barons 
resisted, and called a parliament, when the king was virtually de- 
posed. (A. D. 1258.) Am attempt to regain his authority led to 
all the horrors of civil war. In another parliament, called by the 
barons, (A. D. 1265,) and embracing delegates from the counties, 
cities, and boroughs, we find the first germs of popular representa- 
tion in England ; and although, eventually, the baronial party, whoso 
tyranny was found scarcely less than that of the king, was over- 
thrown, yet their incautious innovation had already laid the basis of 
the future House of Commons. 

a. The Great Charter was signed on the 19th of June, 1215, at Rimnymede, on the Thames, 
between Slauies and Windsor. 



294 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

13. Henry was succeeded by his son, Edward I., who, at the time 
of his father's death, was absent on the last crusade to the Holy 
Land. (A. D. 1272.) The active and splendid reign of this prince, 
who left behind him the character of a great statesman and com- 
mander, was mostly occupied with the attempt to unite the whole of 
G-reat Britain under one sovereigntj^ When Llewellyn, prince of 

IV suBJu- Wales, ^ refused to perform the customary homage to the 
GATioN OF English crown, Edward declared war against him, over- 
wALEs. ^.^^^ ^i^g country, and subdued it, after a brave resistance. 
(1277—1283.) 

14. The remainder of Edward's reign was filled with attempts to 
subjugate Scotland, to which country the English monarch laid 
claim as lord paramount, by the rights of fealty and succession. A 
Scotch king, taken prisoner by Henry II., had been compelled, as the 
price of his release, to do homage for his crown ; and the same had 
been demanded of later princes, in return for lands which they held 
in England. By the death of Alexander III. of Scotland, in the 
year 1283, the crown devolved on his grand daughter the princess 
Margaret, who was a niece of Edward I. of England. This lady 
was soon after affianced to Edward's only son, the prince of Wales; 
and thus the prospect of uniting the crowns of the two kingdoms 
seemed near at hand, when the frail bond of union was suddenly 
destro3'ed by the untimely death of the princess. 

15. The two principal Scotch competitors for the crown were now 
John Baliol and Robert Bruce, who agreed to submit their claims to 
the decision of Edward. The latter decided in favor of Baliol, on 
condition of his becoming a vassal of the English king. (A. D. 1292.) 

1. Wales, anciently called Cambria, a principality in the west of Great Britain, having on 
the north and west the Irish Sea, and on the south and south-west Bristol Channel, is about one 
hundred and fifty miles in length from north to south, and from fifty to eighty in breadth. The 
Welsh are descendants of the ancient Britons, who, being driven out of England by the Anglo 
Saxons, -took refuge in the mountain fastnesses of Wales, or fled to the continent of Europe, 
where they gave their name to Brittany. In the ninth century AVales was divided into three 
sovereignties, Ivorth Wales, South Wales, and the intermediate district called Po wis,— the 
reigning princes of wliich were held together by some loose ties of confederacy. In the year 
933 the English king Athelstan compelled the Welsh principalities to become his tributaries; 
and upon the treaty then concluded with them, founded on the feudal relation of lord and vas- 
sal, the Normans based their claim of lordship paramoujit over all Wales. During th.e 
eleventh and twelfth centuries, South Wales v.'as the scene of frequent contests between the 
Welsh and Normans. "When Edward I. claimed feudal homage of Llewellyn, the duty of 
fealty was acknowledged by the hitter; but ho was unwilling, by going to London, to place 
himself in the power of a monarch who had recently violated a solemn treaty with him ; and 
hence arose a war which resulted in the death of Llewellyn, and the subjugation of his 
country. A. D. 1282-5. {Map No. XVI.) 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 295 

The impatient temper of Baliol could not brook the humiliating acts 
of vassalage required of him ; and when war broke out between 
France and England, he refused military aid to the latter, and con- 
cluded a treaty of alliance with the French monarch. {A. D. 1292.) 
War between England and Scotland followed ; and Baliol, after a 
brief resistance, being defeated in the great battle of 
Dunbar,^ was forced to make submission to Edward in ' .^^^^,3 " 
terms of abject supplication. The victor returned to 
London, carrying with him not only the Scottish crown and sceptre, 
but also the sacred stone on which the Scottish monarchs were placed 
when they received the royal inauguration. (A. D. 1296.) 

16. Scarcely, however, had Edward crossed the frontiers, when the 
Scots reasserted their independence, and under the brave Sir Wil- 
liam Wallace, a man of obscure birth, but worthy to be ranked 
among the foremost of patriots, defeated the English at Stirling,"' 
and recovered the whole of Scotland as rapidly as it had been lost. . 
Again Edward advanced, at the head of a gallant muster of all the 
English chivalry, and the Scots were defeated at Falkirk ^ (A. D. 
1298.) The adherents of Wallace mutmied against him; and a 
few years later the hero of Scotland was treacherously betrayed into 
the hands of Edward, and being condemned for the pretended crime 
of treason, was infamously executed, to the lasting dishonor of the 
English king. (A. D. 1305.) 

17. The cause of Scottish freedom was revived by Ptobert Bruce, 
grandson of the Bruce who had been competitor for the throne 
against Baliol. In the spring of the year 1306 he was crowned 
king at Scone* by the revolted barons. In the following year, Ed- 



1. Dunbar is a seaport of Scotland, twenty-seven miles north-east from Edinburgh. The 
ancient castle of Dunbar, the scene of many warlike exploits, stood on a lofty rock, the base 
of which was washed by t!ie sea. It was taken by Edward I. in 1296 ;— four times it received 
within its walls the imfortunate Queen Mary ;— and it was in the vicinity of Dunbar that Crom- 
well defeated the Scots under General Leslie, in 1650. {Map No. XVI.) 

'J. Stirlinff is a river port and fortress of Scotland, on the Forth, thirty miles north-west from 
Edinburgh. Its fine old castle is placed on a basaltic rock, rising abruptly three hundred feet 
from the river's edge. {Map No. XVI.) 

3. Falkirk is an ancient town of Scotland, twenty-two miles north-west from Edinburgh, and 
three miles south of the Friih of Forth. In the valley, a little north of the town, the 3colcli, 
under Wallace, were defeated on the 2M of July, 1-298. In this battle fell Sir John Slewari, 
the commander of the Scottish archers, and Sir John the Grahame, the bosojn friend of Wal- 
lace. The tomb of Grahame, which the gratitude of his countrymen has thrice renewed, is 
to be seen in the churchyard of Falkirk. On a moor, half a mile south-west from the town, 
Charles Stuart, the Pretender, gained a victory over the royal army in 1746. (Map No. XVF. >•.) 

4. Scone^ now a small village of Scotland, is a little above Perth, on the river Tay, eighteen 
miles west from Dundee, and thirly-flve north-west from Edinburgh. It was formerly the resi- 



296 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II 

ward, assembling a miglitj army, to render resistance hopeless, took 
the field against him, but he died on his march, and the expedition 
was abandoned by his son and successor, Edward II., in opposition 
to the dying injunctions of his father. (A. D. 1307.) Still the war 
continued, and the Scotch were generally successful ; but after seven 
years Edward himself marched against the rebels at the head of 
more than a hundred thousand men; but being met by Bruce at the 
head of little more than a third of that number, he experienced a 
total defeat in the battle of Bannockburn,^ which established the in- 
dependence of Scotland. (A. D. June 24th, 1314.) 

18. The northern nations of Europe, during the tenth, eleventh, 
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, were much less advanced in civilization 
than those which sprung from the wrecks of the Roman empire ; and 
their obscure annals offer little to our notice but the germs of rude king- 
doms in the early stages of formation. In the south-west of Europe, 
the wars between the Moors and Christians of the Spanish peninsula 
had already continued during a period of more than five centuries, 
with ever -varying results ; but the overthrow of the Western cali- 
phate of Cordova, in the year 1030, followed by the dismemberment 
of the Moham' medan empire of Spain, into several independent 
States, (A. D. 1238,) struck a fatal blow at the Saracen dominion. 
But, unfortunately, the Christian provinces also were little united, 
and it was not uncommon for the Christian princes to form alliances 
with the Moors against one another. The founding of the Moorish 
khtgdom of Granada, in 1238, for a time delayed the fall of the 
Moslems ; but the Christians gradually extended their power, until, 
near the close of the fifteenth century, GJ-ranada yielded to the tor- 
rent that had long been setting against it, and with its fall the su- 
premacy of the Christian faith and power v/as acknowledged through- 
out the peninsula.^ 

dence of the Scottish khigs— the place of their coronation— and has been the scene of many 
historical events. The remains of its ancient palace are incorporated with the mansion of the 
Cfirl of Mansfield. (Map No. XVI.) 

1. Bannockhurn, the name of which is inseparably connected with one of the most mem- 
oral)le events in British history, is three miles south-west from Stirling. About one mile west 
from Ihe village James III. Avas defeated in 1488, by his rebellious subjects and his son James 
IV., and, after being wounded in the engagement, was assassinated at a mill in the vicinity, 
(Map No. XVI.) 

a. See next Section, pp. 317-18. and Notes. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 297 

SECTION III. 

GENERAL HISTORY DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

1. ENGLAND AND FRANCE DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND 
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Continuation of the histories of France and England.— 2. Defeat of Edward 
II. in the battle of nannockburn. Edward offends the barons. [Gascony.] The Great Charter 
confirmed, and annual parliaments ordained. — 3. Rebellion of the barons, and death of Ed- 
ward. Reign of Edward III. Invasion of Scotland. [Halidon Hill.] 

French and English wars. — 4. Edward disputes the succession to the throne of France. 
Invasion of France, and battle of Cressy. [Cressy.] Defeat of the Scots, and capture of Calais. 
[Durham. Calais.] — 5. Renewal of the war with France, and victory of Poictiers. (135G.) 
Anarchy in France. Treaty of Bretigny. The conquered territory. [Breligny. Aquitaine. 
Bordeaux.]— 6. Renewal of the war with France in 1368. Relative condition of the two powers. 
The French recover their provinces. [Bayonne. Brest, and Cherbourg.]— 7. Death of Edward 
HI. of England, and Charles V. of France. The distractions that followed in both kingdoms. 
[Orleans. I^ancaster. Gloucester.] Wat Tyler's insurrection. [Blackheath.]— 8. Character 
of Richard II. He is deposed, and succeeded by Henry IV. (1399.) The legal claimant. 
Origin of the contentions between the houses of York and Lancaster. — 9. Insurrection against 
Ilem-y. [Shrewsbury.] — 10. Accession of Henry V., and happy change in his character. He 
invades France, and defeats the French in the battle of Agincourt. — 11. Civil war in France, 
and return of Henry. The treaty with the Burgundian faction. Opposition of the Orleans 
party. [Tlie States General. The dauphin.]— 12. The infant king of the English, Henry VI., 
and the French king Charles VII. Joan of Arc. Her declared mission.— 13. Successes of the 
French, and fate of Joan.— 14. The EngUsh gradually lose all their continental possessions, ex- 
cept Calais. Tranquillity in France. 

15. Unpopularity of the reigning English family. Popular insurrection. Beginning of the 
WARS OF THE Two Roses. [St. Albans.] — 16. Sanguinary character of the strife. First period 
of the war closes with the accession of Edward IV., of the house of York. — 17. The Freucli 
king. The reign of Edward IV. The earl of Warwick. Overthrow of the Lancastrians. 
The fate of Margaret, her son, and the late king Henry IV. [Warwick. Tewkesbury.] — 18. 
The colemporary reign of Louis XI. of France. The relations of Edward and Louis. — 19. 
Fate of Edward V., and accession of Richard III. Defeat and death of Richard, and end of 
the " Wars of the Two Roses." [Richmond. Bosworth.] 

20. Reign of Henry VII. The impostors Simnel and Warbeck. [Dublin.]— 21. Treaties 
with France and Scotland, The Scottish marriage. — 22. Why the reign of Henry VII. is an 
important epoch in English history. 

II. OTHER NATIONS AT THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Union of Calraar. [Calmar.] 

2. The Russian e.mpire. Its early history. [Dnieper. Novogorod.] Divisions of the 
kingdom in the eleventh century. — 3. Tartar invasions. The reign of John III. duke of Mos- 
cow. Russia at the end of the fifteenth century. — 4. Founding of the Ottoman e.mpire, on the 
ruins of the Eastern or Greek empire. [Emir.] The Turkish empire at the close of the four- 
teenth century. The sultan Bajazet overthrown by Tamerlane.- 5. The Tartar empire op 
Tamerlane. Defeat of the Turks. Turks and Christians iiiiile against the Tartars. Death 
of Tamerlane. [Samarcand. Angora.]— C. Taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and 
extinction of the Eastern empire. 

7. Poland. Commencement and early history of Poland. Extent of ihe kingdom at the 
close of the fifteenth century. [Poland. Lithuania. Teutonic kniglits. Moldavia.]— 8. The 
German empire at the close of the fifteenth century. Elective monarchs. — 9. Causes that 
render the history of Germany exceedingly complicated. The three powerful States of Ger- 
many about the middle of the fourteenth century. [Lu.xemburg. Bohemia. Moravia. Silesia. 



298 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Lusatia. Brandenburg. Holland. Tyrol. Austria.]— 10. Austrian princes of Germany. Im- 
portant changes made dm-ing the reign of Maximilian. [Worms.] — II. Switzerland revolts 
from Austria. Long-continued wars. Switzerland independent at the close of the fifieenth 
century. [Rutuli. William Tell. IMorgarten. Sempach.] — 12. Italian History during the 
central period of the Middle Ages. The Italian republics. [Genoa.] Duchy of Milan.— 13. 
The Florentines. Contests between the Genoese and Venetians. [Levant.] Genoa at the 
close of the fifteenth century.— 14. History of Venice. Her power at the end of the fifteenth 
century. [Morea.] The popes, and kings of Naples. Interference of foreign powers. — 15. 
Spain. Union of the most powerful Christian States. Overthrow of the Saracen dominions in 
Spain. [Navarre. Aragon. Castile. Leon. Granada.]— 16. History of Portugal. [Farther 
account of Portugal.] 

in. DISCOVERIES. 

1, Navigation, and geographical knowledge, daring the Dark Ages. Revival of commerce. 
[Pisa.] Discovery of the magnetic needle. The art of printing. Discovery of the Canaries. 
Portuguese discoveries. [Canaries. Cape de Verd and Azore islands.] — 2. Views and objects 
of Prince Henry. His death. Fame of the discoveries patronized by him. Christopher Co- 
lumbus. The bold project conceived by him. [Lisbon. Ireland. Guinea.] — 3. The trials of 
Columbus. His final triumph, in the discoveiy of America. Vasco de Gama. Closing 
remarks. 

1. England and FpwANce during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
CENTURIES. — 1. France and England occupy the most prominent 
place in the history of European nations during the closing period 
of the Middle Ages ; and as their annals, during most of this period, 
are so intimately connected that the history of one nation is in great 
part the history of both, the unity of the subject will best be pre- 
served, and repetition avoided, by treating both in connection. 

2. The reign of Edward II. of England, whose defeat by the 
Scots in the famous battle of Bannockburn has already been men- 
tioned, although inglorious to himself, and disastrous to the British 
arms, was not, on the whole, unfavorable to the progress of constitu- 
tional liberty. The unbounded favoritism of Edward to Gaveston, 
a handsome youth of Gascony,^ whom the king elevated in v/ealth 
and dignities above all the nobles in England, roused the resentment 
of the barons ; and the result was the banishment of the favorite, 
and a reformation of abuses in full parliament. (A. D. 1313.) The 
Great Charter, so often violated, was again confirmed ; and the im- 
poitant provision was added, that there should be an annual assem- 
bling of parliament, for protection of the people, when " aggrieved 
by the king's ministers against right.-' 

3. But other favorities supplied the place of Gaveston : the 
nobles rebelled against their sovereign : his faithless queen Isabella, 
sister of the king of France, took part with the malcontents, and 

1. Oascmnj, before the French Revolution, was a province of France, situated between the 
Garonne, the sea, and the Pyrenees. Tlie Gascons are a people of much spirit ; but their exag- 
geration in describing their exploits has made the term gasconade proverbial. {J\Iap No. XIII.) 



Chap. II.J MIDDLE AGES. 299 

Edward was deposed, imprisoned, and afterwards murdered. (A. D. 
1327.) Edward III., crowned at fourteen years of age, unable to 
endure the presence of a mother stained with the foulest crimes, 
caused her to be imprisoned for life, and her paramour, Mortimer, 
to be executed. He then applied himself to redress the grievances 
which had proceeded from the late abuses of authority ; after which 
he invaded Scotland, and defeated the Scots at Halidon Hill;^ but 
on his withdrawal from tlie country, the Scottish arms again tri- 
umphed. 

4. On the death, in the year 1328, of Charles IV. of France, the 
last of the male descendants of Philip the Fair, the , 

■*■ 'I, FRENCH 

crown of that kingdom became the object of contest be- and englisu 
tween Edward III. of England, the son of Philip's "'''^''^^ 
daughter Isabella, and Philip of Yalois, son of the brother of Philip. 
After war had continued several years between the two nations, with 
only occasional intervals of truce, in the year 1346 Edward, in per- 
son, invaded France, and, supported by his heroic son Edward, called 
the Black Prince, then only fifteen years of age, gained a great vic- 
tory over the French in the famous battle of Cressy''' — slaying more 
of the enemy than the total number of his own army. (Aug. 26th, 
1346.) A few weeks after the battle of Cressy, the Scots, who had 
seized the opportunity of Edward's absence to invade England, were 
defeated in the battle of Durham,^ and their king David Bruce taken 
prisoner. (Oct. 17, 1346.) To crown the honors of the campaign, 
the important seaport of Calais,* in France, surrendered to Edward, 
after a vigorous siege ; and this important acquisition wag retained 
by the English more than two centuries. 

1. Halidon Hill is an eminence north of tlie river Tweed, not far from Berwick. 

2. Crcssij, or Crecy, is a small village, in the former province of Picardy, ninety-five mileg 
north-west from Paris. It is believed that cannon, but of very rude construction, were first 
employed by the English in this battle. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. Durham, the capital of the county of the same name, is an important city in the north of 
England, two hundred and thirty miles north-west from London. The field on which the bat- 
tle was fought, some distance north of Durham, on the road to Newcastle, (Oct. ]7th, 1346,) 
was called JVeville's doss. (Map No. XVI.) 

4. Calais (Eng. Cal-is, Fr. Kah-la',) a seaport of France, on the Straits of Dover, in the 
former province of Picardy, is fifty miles north of Cressy. In 1558 Calais was retaken by sur- 
I)rise by the duke of Guise. In 1596 it was again taken by the English imder the arcliduks 
Albert, but in 1598 was restored to France by the treaty of Nervins. 

The obstinate resistance which Calais made to Edward III. in 1347, is said to have so much 
incensed the conqueror that he determined to put to death six principal burgesses of the town, 
who, to save their fellow citizens, had magnanimously placed themselves at his disposal ; but 
that he was turned from his purpose only by the tears and entreaties of his queen Piiilippa. It 
is believed, however, that Froissart alone, among his cotemporaries, relates this storj^ ; an4 
doubts may very reasonably be entertained of its truth. (Mip No. XI 11.) 



300 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

6. After a truce of eight years, during which occurred the death 
of the French monarch, Philip of Valois, and the accession of his 
son John to the throne of France, war was again renewed, but was 
speedily terminated by a great victory, which the Black Prince ob- 
tained over king John in the battle of Poictiers. (Sept. 1356.) The 
French monarch, although taken prisoner, and conveyed in triumph 
to London, was treated with great moderation and kindness ; but his 
captivity produced in France the most horrible anarchy, which was 
carried to the utmost extreme by a revolt of peasants, or serfs, 
against their lords, in most of the provinces surrounding the capital.^ 
At length, while king John was still a prisoner, the two nations con- 
cluded a treaty at Bretigny,' (A. D. 1360,) which provided that king 
John should be restored to liberty, and that the English monarch 
should renounce his claim to the throne of France, and to the pos- 
session of Normandy and other provinces in the north ; but that the 
whole south-west of France, embracing more than a third of the 
kingdom, and extending from the Rhone nearly to the Loire, should 
be guaranteed to England. The territory obtained from France 
was erected into the principality of Aquitaine,'' the government of 
which was intrusted to the Black Prince, who, during several years, 
kept his court at Bordeaux.^ 

6. The treaty with France was never fully ratified ; and in the 
year 1368 war between the two countries was commenced anew, the 
blame of the rupture being thrown by each nation upon the other. 
In the interval since the late treaty a great change had taken place 
in the condition of the rival powers : king Edward was now declining 
in age ; and his son the Black Prince was enfeebled by disease ; and 
the ceded French provinces were eager to return to their native king ; 
while, on the other hand, France had recovered from her great losses, 
and the wise and popular Charles Y. occupied the throne, in the 
place of the rash and intemperate John. France gradually recovered 

1. Brctigny is a small hamlet six miles south-east from Chartres, and fifty miles south-west 
flora Paris, in the former province of Orleans. 

2. ^Iquitaine {.^quitani(i) was the name of the Roman province in Gaul south of the Loire. 
Since the time of the llomaus it has been sometimes a kingdom and sometimes a duchy. Be- 
fore llie revolution, what remained of this ancient provhice passed under the name of Gui- 
cnnc. Bordeaux was its capital. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Bordeaux, called by tlie Romans Burdig-ala, an important commercial city and seaport of 
France, is on the west bank of the Garonne, fifty-five miles from its mouth, and three hundred 
and seven miles south-west from Paris. Montesquieu and Montaigne, Edward the Black Prince, 
pope Clement V., and Richard II. of England, were natives of this city. (Map No. XIII.) 

a. Feb. 1358. This revolt was called I.a Jacquerie, from Jacques Bon Homme, the leader 
of the rebels. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 301 

most of lier provinces without obtainining a single victory, although 
the keys of the country — Bordeaux, Bayonne,^ Calais, Brest, and 
Cherbourg^ — were still left in the hands of the English. 

7. On the death of Edward (A. D. 1377) the crown fell to the 
son of the Black Prince, Richard II., then only eleven years of age. 
Three years later, Charles V., by his death, left the crown of Franco 
to his son Charles VI., a youth of only twelve years. Both kingdoms 
suffered from the distractions attending a regal minority : — in France 
the people were plundered by the exactions of the regents, and the 
kingdom harassed by the factious struggles for power between the 
dukes of Bur' gundy and Orleans ;' and in England similar results 
attended the contests for the regency between the king's uncles, the 
dukes of Lancaster,* York,^ and (xloucester." In the year 1381 the 
injustice of parliamentary taxation occasioned a famous revolt of 

1. Bayonne is on the south side of the Adour, four miles from its mouth, near the south- 
■western extremity of France. Bayonne is strongly fortified, and, although often besieged, has 
never been taken. The military weapon called the bayonet takes its name from this city, where 
it is said to have been first invented, and brought into use at the siege of Bayonne, during the 
war between Francis I. and Charles V. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. Brest and Cherbourg are small but strongly-fortified seaport towns in the north-west of 
France. Cherbourg was the last town in Normandy retained by the English. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Bur' gundy and Orleans. An account of Bur' gundy has already been given. Orleans^ a 
city of France, and formerly capital of the province of the same name, is situated on the 
Loire, sixty-eight miles south-west from Paris. Orleans occupied the site of the ancient Gena- 
bum, the emporium of the Corniites, which was taken and burned by Caesar. (Caesar B. 
VII. 12.) It subsequently rose to great eminence, and was unsuccessfully besieged by At' tila 
and Odoacer, It became the capital of the first kingdom of Bur' gundy under the first race of 
French kings. Philip of Valois erected it into a duchy and peerage in favor of his son ; and 
Orleans has since continued to give the title of duke to a prince of the blood royal. Charles 
VI. conferred the title of "duke of Orleans" on his younger brother, who became the founder 
of the Valois-Orleans line. Louis XIV. conferred it on his younger brother Philip, the founder 
of the Bourbon dynasty of the house of Orleans. Louis Philip was the first and only ruling 
prince of the Bourbon-Orleans dynasty. {Map No. XIII.) 

4. Lancaster^ which has given its name to the "dukes of Lancaster,'' is a seaport town on 
the coast of the Irish Sea, forty-six miles from Liverpool, and two hundred and five miles 
north-west from London. Lancaster is supposed, from the urns, altars, and other antiquities 
found there, to have been a Roman station. The first earl of Lancaster was created in 12G6. 
In 1351 Henry, earl of Derby, was made duke of Lancaster: John Gaunt, fourth son of Ed- 
ward III., married Blanch, the duke's daughter, and, by virtue of this alliance, succeeded to 
the title. His son Henry of Bolingbroke became duke of Lancaster on his father's death in 
1398, and finally Henry IV., king of England in 1399, from which time to the present this 
duchy has been associated with the regal dignity. {Map No. XVI.) 

5. York, See Note, p. 209. {Map No. XVI.) 

G. Gloucester is on the east bank of the Severn, ninety-three miles north-west from London. 
It was fomided by the Romans A. D. 44 ; and Roman coins and antiquities are frequently dug 
up on the supposed site of the old encampment. Richard II. created his uncles dukes of York 
and Gloucester ; and since that time the ducal title has remained the highest title of English 
nobility. The duke of Lancaster was the only one who really possessed a duchy (the county 
of Lancaster; subject to his government, and that was remiited to the crown in 14GI. {Map 
No. XVI.) 



302 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II, 

the lower classes, headed b}^ the Blacksmith Wat Tyler, similar to 
the insurrection of the French peasants which raged in 1358. In 
both nations these events mark the advance of the serfs, in their 
progress toward emancipation, to that stage in which their hopes are 
roused, and their wrongs still unredressed. The serfs of Englanl 
demanded equal laws, and the abolition of bondage : to the number 
of sixty thousand they assembled at Blackheath,' — obtained possess- 
ion of London, and put to death the chancellor and primate, as evil 
counsellors of the crown, and cruel oppressors of the people ; but 
the fall of their leader struck terror into the insurgents, and the re- 
volt was easily extinguished, while the honor of the crown was sul- 
lied by a revocation of the promised charters of enfranchisement 
and pardon. More than fifteen hundred of the mutineers perished 
by the hand of the hangman. 

8. It was not till the age of twenty-three that Kichard escaped 
from the tutelage of his uncles ; and then his indolence, dissipation, 
and prodigality, brought him into contempt ; and during his absence 
in Ireland a successful revolution elevated his cousin, Henry of Lan- 
caster, surnamed Bolingbroke, to the throne. (A. D. 1399.) The 
parliament confirmed the deposition of Richard, who was soon after 
privately assassinated in prison. ^ The accession of Henry IV. to 
the throne met with no opposition, although he was not the legal 
claimant, the hereditary right being in Edward Mortimer, who was 
descended from the second son of Edward III., whereas Heni'y was 
descended from the third son. The claim of Mortimer was at a 
later period vested by marriage in the family of the duke of York, 
descended from the fourth son of Edvfard ; and hence began the 
contentions between the houses of York and Lancaster. 

9. The discontented friends of Henry proved his most dangerous 
enemies ; for the Percys, who had enthroned him, dissatisfied with 
his administration, took up arms and involved the country in civil 
war ;b but in the great battle of Shrewsbury^ (July 21, 1403) the 

1. Blackhenth is an elevated moory tract in the vicinity of the British metropolis, south-west 
of tlie city. The greater portion is in the parish of Greenwich. 

2. Shrewsbury is situated on the Severn, one hundred and thirty-eight miles north-west from 
London. William the Conqueror gave the town and surrounding country to Roger de Mont- 
gomery, who built here a strong baronial castle ; but in 1102 the castle and property were for- 
feited to the crown. Shrewsbury, from its situation close to Wales, was the scene of many 
border frays between the Welsh and English. In the battle of July 1403, the fall of the famous 
Lord Percy, surnamed Hotspur, by an imknown hand, decided the victory in the king's favor. 
{Map No. XVI.) 

a. Read Shakspeare's " King Richard II." 

b. Read Shakspeare's " First Part of Kin? Henry IV." 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 303 

insurgents were defeated, although the insurrection was still kept up 
a number of years, chiefly by the successful valor of Owen Glendower, 
the Welsh ally of the Percys. 

10. Henry IV. was succeeded by his son Henry V. in the year 
1413. The previous turbulent and dissipated character of the nev»' 
sovereign had given little promise of a happy reign ; but immediate- 
ly after his accession he dismissed the former companions of his 
vices, — took into his confidence the wise ministers of his father, — 
and, laying aside his youthful pleasures, devoted all his energies to 
the tranquillizhig of the kingdom, and the wise government of the 
people.''*- Taking advantage of the disorders of France, and the tem- 
porary insanity of its sovereign Charles VI., he revived the English 
claim to the throne of that kingdom, and at the head of thirty thou- 
sand men passed over into Normandy to support his pretensions. 
After his army had been wasted by a contagious disease, which re- 
duced it to eleven thousand men, he met and defeated the French 
army of fifty thousand in the battle of Agincourt,^ — slaying ten 
thousand of the enemy and taking fourteen thousand jDrisoners, among 
whom were many of the most eminent barons and princes of the 
realm. (Oct. 24, 1415.) 

11. The Orleans and Burgundian factions which had temporarily 
laid aside their contentions to oppose the invader, renewed them on 
the departure of Henry, and soon involved the kingdom in the hor- 
rors of civil war. In the midst of these evils Henry returned to 
follow up his victory, and fought his way to Paris, when the Bur- 
gundian faction tendered him the crown of France, with the promise 
of its aid to support his claim. A treaty was soon concluded with 
the queen of the insane king and the duke of Bur' gundy, by which 
it was agreed that Henry should marry Catherine, the daughter of 
Charles, and succeed to the throne on the death of her father ; while 
in the meantime he was to govern the kingdom as regent. (May, 
1420.) The States General^ of the kingdom assented to the treaty; 
and the western and northern provinces owned the sway of England ; 
but the central and south-eastern districts adhered to the cause of 



1. ^^gincourt is a small village of France in the former province of Artois, one hundred and 
ten miles north from Paris. {Map No. Xlll.) 

2. Cy the States General is meant the great council or general parliament of (he nation, 
composed of representatives from the nobility, the clergy, and the municipalities. The country 
districts sent no representatives. (See Univei'sity Edition, p. 824.) 

a. Happily portrayed in Shakspeare'a "Second Part of King Henry IV," Act v., Scene ii. 
and V. 



304 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

the daupliiii/ afterwards Charles VII., the only surviving son of his 
father, and the head of the Orleans party. Henry V. did not live to 
wear the crown of France ; and the helpless Charles survived him 
only two months. (Died A. D. 1422.) 

12. The English king left a son, Henry VI., then only nine 
months old, to inherit his kingdom. France, however, was now 
openly divided between the rival monarchs — its native sovereign 
Charles VII., and the English king, in the person of the infant 
Henry. In the war which followed, the prospects of the English 
were gradually improving, when they received a fatal check from the 
extraordinary appearance of a heroine, the famous Joan of Arc, 
whom the credulity of the age believed to have been divinely com- 
missioned for the salvation of the French nation. Moved by a sort 
of religious phrensy, this obscure country girl was enabled to inspire 
her sovereign, the priests, the nobles, and the army, with the truth 
of her holy mission, which was, to drive the English from Orleans, 
which they were then besieging, and to open the way for the crown- 
ing of Charles at Kheims, then in the hands of the enemy. 

13. Superstition revived the hopes of the French, and inspired 
the English with manifold terrors — the harbingers of certain defeat : 
in a short period all the promises of the maiden were fulfilled, and 
in accordance with -her predictions she had the happiness to see 
Charles VII. crowned in the cathedral. Her mission ended, she 
wished to retire to the humble station from which Providence had 
called her, but being retained with the army, she afterwards fell into 
the hands of the English, who inhumanly condemned and executed 
her for the imaginary crime of sorcery. 

14. In the death of Joan of Arc the English indeed destroyed the 
cause of their late reverses ; but nothing could stay the new impulse 
which her wonderful successes had given to the French nation. In 
the year 1437 Charles gained possession of his capital, after twenty 
years exclusion from it ; the Burgundian faction had previously be- 
come reconciled to him, and thenceforward the war lost its serious 
character, while the struggle of the English grew more and more 
feeble, until, in 1453, Calais was the only town of the continent re- 
maining in their hands. From this period until the death of 

1. Dauphin is the title of the eldest son of the king of France. In 1349 Harabert II. trans- 
ferred liis estate, the province of Danphiny, to Philip of Valois, on condition that the eldest 
son of the king of France shonld, in fut\irc, be called the dauphin^ and govern this territory. 
The dauphin, however, retains only the title, the estates having long been united with the 
crown lands. 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 305 

Charles VII., in 1461, France enjoyed domestic tranquillity, wLile 
civil wars of the fiercest violence were raging in England. 

15. The hereditary claim of the house of York to the English 
throne has already been mentioned, (p. 302.) Henry was a weak 
prince, and subject to occasional fits of idiocy ; but his wife, Marga- 
ret of Anjou,^ a woman of great spirit and ambition, possessing the 
allurements, but without the virtues, of her sex, ruled in his name. 
The haughtiness of the queen, the dishonor brought on the English 
arms by the loss of France, and the imbecility and insignificance of 
Henry, when contrasted with the popular virtues of Richard duke 
of York, rendered the reigning family unpopular with the nation ; 
and when Richard advanced his pretensions to the crown, a powerful 
party rallied to his support. A formidable rising of the people in 
the year 1450, under a leader who is known in history under the 
nickname of Jack Cade, first manifested the gathering ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ 
discontent. Five years later civil war between the York- of the two 
ists and Lancastrians broke out in diff'erent parts of the ^oses. 
kingdom ; and in the first battle, at St. Albans,^ King Henry was 
taken prisoner. The Yorkists wore, as the symbol of their party, a 
white rose, and the Lancastrians a red rose ; and the contests which 
marked their struggle for power are usually called the " wars of the 
two roses." 

16. We have not room to enter into details of the sanguinary 
strife that followed. " In my remembrance*" says a cotemporary 
writer,^ " eighty princes of the blood royal of England perished in 
these convulsions ; seven or eight battles were fought in the course 
of thirty years ; and their own country was desolated by the English 
as cruelly as the former generation had wasted France." After many 
vicissitudes of fortune, in which Henry was twice defeated and taken 
prisoner, and Richard and his second son were slain, at the close of 
the first period of the war the white rose triumphed, and Edward 
IV., eldest son of the late duke of York, became king of England. 
(A. D. 1461.) 

17. Charles VII. of France died the same year, and was succeed- 

1. Anjou was an ancient province of France, on both sides of the Loire, north of Poitou. 
Tu the year 1246 Louis IX. of France bestowed this province on his younger brother Charles, 
with the title of count of Anjou ; but in 1328 it fell to the crown, at the accession of Philip VI. 
Subsequently different princes of the blood bore the title of Anjou ; and Margaret, who be» 
came queen of England, was the daughter of Rene of Anjou. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. St. Albans is a small town twenty miles north-west from London. 

a. Philip de Comines. * \ 

20 



306 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

ed 01) the throne by his son Louis XI. The reign of Edward IV. 
of England was a reign of terror. Once he was deposed, and Henry 
reinstated, by the great power and influence of the earl of Warwick,^ 
to whom the people gave the name of king-maker. But Warwick 
afterwards fell in battle ; and in the year 1471 the heroic Margaret 
and her son were defeated and taken prisoners, and the power of the 
Lancastrians was overthrown in the desperate battle of Tewkesbury," 
w^iich concluded this sanguinary war. Margaret was at first im- 
prisoned, but afterwards ransomed by the king of France : her son 
was assassinated : Henry VI. breathed his last, as a prisoner, in the 
Tower of London ; and Edward was finally established on the throne. 

18. The reign of Edward IV. was throughout cotemporary with 
that of Louis XI. of France, a prince of a tyrannical, superstitious, 
crafty, and cruel nature, but who possessed such a fund of comic 
humor, and such oddities of thoughts and manner, as to throw his 
atrocious cruelties into the shade. The relations of these two princes 
with each other were in a high degree dishonorable to both. Ed- 
ward, by threatening war upon France, obtained from Louis the 
secret payment of exorbitant pensions for himself and his ministers ; 
and the latter were with much reason charged with being the hired 
agents of the French king. Both these princes died in 1483, and 
both were succeeded by minors. 

19. Edv/ard V., at the age of twelve years, succeeded his father 
as king of England ; but after a nominal reign of little more than 
two months, the young king and his brother the duke of York were 
murdered in the Tower, at the instigation of their uncle the duke of 
Gloucester, who caused himself to be proclaimed king, with the title 
of Richard III. But the whole nation was alienated by the crimes 
of Richard : the claims of the Lancastrian family were revived by 
Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond ;* and at the decisive battle of Bos- 

1. Tlie earldom of Warwick dates from the time of William the Conqueror, who bestowed 
the town and caslle of that name, with the title of earl, on Henry de Ncwburg, one of his fol- 
lowers. The town of AVarwick, capital of the county of the sjime name, is on the river Avon, 
eighty-two miles norlh-west from London. (^Map No. XVI.) 

2. Tewkesbury is on the river Avon, near its confluence with the Severn, thirty-three miles 
south-west from Warwick, and ninety miles north-west from London. The field on which the 
battle was fought, in the immediate vicinity of the town, is still called the " Bloody Meadow." 

3. Richmond^ which gave ii title to the dukes of that name, is in the north of England, forty- 
one miles north-west from York. Its castle was founded by the first earl of Richmond, who 
received from William the Conqueror the forfeited estates of the earl of Mercia, and built 
Richmond castle to protect his family and property. The title and property, after being 
possessed by different persons allied to the blood royal, were at length vested in the crown by 
the accession of Henry, earl of Richmond, to the throne, with the title of Heiu-y VU. {Map 
No, XVI.) 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 307 

worth field, ^ Richard was defeated and slain (1485). The crown 
which Richard wore in the action was immediately placed on the head 
of the earl of Richmond, who was proclaimed king, with the title of 
Henry VII. His marriage soon after with the princess Elizabeth, 
heiress of the house of York, united the rival claims of York and 
Lancaster in the Tudor family, and put an end to the civil contests 
v/hich, for more than half a century, had deluged England with blood. 

20. The early part of the reign of Henry VII. was disturbed by 
two singular enterprises, — the attempt made in Ireland, 

by Lambert Simnel, to counterfeit the person of the "HENRr^vn'' 
young earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward IV., and the 
only remaining male heir of the house of York ; and the similar 
attempt of Perkin Warbeck to counterfeit the young duke of 
York, one of the princes who had been murdered in the Tower at 
the instigation of Richard III. Both impostors, claiming the right 
to the throne, received their principal support in Ireland ; but the 
former, after being crowned at Dublin,'^ and afterwards defeated in 
battle, (1487,) ended his days as a menial in the king's household, — 
while the latter, after throwing himself upon the king's mercy, being 
detected in subsequent plots, expiated his crime on the scaffold. 

21. The most important of the foreign relations of Henry were 
a treaty with France, which stipulated that no rebel subjects of 
either power should be harbored or aided by the other ; and a treaty 
of peace with Scotland, by which Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry, 
was given in marriage to the Scottish king, James V., a marriage 
from which have sprung all the sovereigns who have reigned in Great 
Britain since the time of Elizabeth The reply of Henry to his 
counsellors who objected to the Scottish marriage, that the kingdom 
of England might by that connection fall to the king of Scotland, 
shows a great degree of sagacity, that has been verified by the result. 
" Scotland would then," said Henry, " become an accession to Eng- 
land, not England to Scotland, for the greater would draw the less : 
it is a safer union for England than one with France." 

22. The reign of Henry VII. may justly be considered an im- 
portant era in English history. It began in revolution, at the close 

1. Boswurth is a small towu ninety-five miles north-west from London. In the battle-field, in 
the vicinity of this town, is an eminence called Crown Hill, where Lord Stanley is said to have 
placed Richard's crown on the earl of Richmond's head. {Map No. XVL) 

2. Dublin, the capital of Ireland, is on the eastern sea-coast of the island, at the mouth of 
the river Liffey, two hundred and ninety-two miles north-west from London. It was called 
by the Danes Divclin, or Dubhlin, " the black pool," from its vicinity to the muddy swamps at 
the mouth of the river. It has a population of two hundred and fifty thousand. {Map No. XVI.) 



308 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

of the long and bloody wars between the houses of York and Lan- 
caster : it effected a change in descents : it marks the decline of the 
feudal system, the waning power of the baronial aristocracy, and a 
corresponding increase of royal prerogatives : it was cotemporary with 
that greatest of events in Modern History, the discovery of Amer- 
ica, — with the advance in knowledge and civilization that dawned 
upon the closing period of the Middle Ages ; with the consolidation 
of the great European monarchies into nearly the shape and extent 
which they retain at the present day ; and with the growth of the 
" balance of power" system, which neutralized the efforts of princes at 
universal dominion. A general survey of the condition of the prin- 
cipal States of Europe at this period will better enable us to com- 
prehend the relations of their subsequent history. 

II. Other Nations at the close of the fifteenth century. — 

1. Of the States of Northern Europe — Denmark,* Sweden, and Nor- 

wav, — constituting the ancient Scandinavia, merit our 

I. DENMARK, " ^ ° • i i i i i 

SWEDEN, AND first attcntiou. After these kingdoms had long been 

NORWAY, agitated by internal dissensions, they were finally, by 

the treaty of Calmar,^ (1397,) united into a single monarchy, near 

1. Denmark embraces the whole of the peninsula north of Germany, early known as the 
Cimbric Chersonese, and afterwards as Jutland. Its earliest known inhabitants were the Cimbri. 
(See p. 171.) The famous but mysterious Odin, the IMars as well as the Mohammed of Scan- 
dinavian history, is said to have emigrated, v/ilh a band of followers, from the banks of the 
Tan' ais to Scandinavia about the middle of the first century before the Christian era, and to 
have established his authority, and the Scythian religion, over Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. 
Skiold, son of Odin, is said to have ruled over Denmark ; but his history, and that of his pos- 
terity for many generations, are involved in fable. Hengist and Horsa, the two Saxon chiefs 
who conquered England in the fifth century, reckoned Odin, (or Wodin in their dialect,) as 
their ancestor. Gorm the Old, son of Hardicanule' J., (H^orrfa-Zcjiw;,) united all the Danish 
States under his sceptre in the year 803. His grandson Svveyn, subdued a part of Norway in 
the year 1000, and a part of England in 1014. His son Canute completed the conquest of Eng- 
land in 1016, and also subdued a part of Scotland. Canute embraced the Christian religion, 
and introduced it into Denmark ; upon which a great change took place in the character of the 
people. At his death, in 103G, he left the crowns of Denmark and England to his son Hardi- 
canute II. In 1385, Margaret, daughter of the Danish prince Waldemar, and wife of Haquin 
king of Norway, styled the Semir' amis of the North, ascended the throne of Norway and 
Denmark. In 1389 she was chosen by the Swedes as their sovereign ; and in 1397 the treaty 
of Calmar united the three crowns— it was supposed forever. In 1448, the princes of the 
family of Skiold having become extinct, the Danes promoted Christian I., count of Oldenburg, 
to the throne. He was the founder of the royal Danish family which has ever since kept 
possession of the throne. In J 523 the Swedes emancipated themselves from the cruel and 
tyrannical yoke of Christian II., king of Denmark. In their straggle for independence they 
were led by the famous Gustavus Vasa, who was raised to the throne of Sweden by the unani- 
mous sufirages of his fellow citizens. Norway remained connected with Denmark till 1814, 
when the allied powers gave it to Sweden, as indemnity for Finland. {Map No. XIV.) 

2. Calmar, rendered famous by the treaty of 1397, is a seaport town on the small island of 
Quarnholm, which is in the narrow strait that separates the island of Oland from the south- 
eastern coast of Sweden. {Map No. XIV.) 



Ohaf. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 309 

the close of the fourteenth century, through the influence of Marga- 
ret of Denmark, whose extraordinary talents and address have ren- 
dered her name illustrious as the " Semir'amis of the North." But 
the union of Calmar, although forming an important epoch in Scan- 
dinavian history, was never firmly consolidated ; and after having 
been renewed several times, was at length irreparably broken by 
Sweden,, which, in the early part of the sixteenth century, (1521,) 
under the conduct of the heroic Gustavus Vasa, recovered its ancient 
independence. 

2. East and south-east of the Scandinavian kingdoms were the 
numerous Sclavonic tribes, which were gradually gathered into the 
empire of Russia. The original cradle of that mighty 

empire which dates back to the time of Rurick, a chief- \^^^^^^ 
tain cotemporary with Alfred the Great, was a narrow 
territory extending from Kiev, along the banks of the Dnieper,^ north 
to Novogorod.^ Darkness for a long time rested upon early Russian 
history, but it has been in great part dispelled by the genius and re- 
search of Karamsin, and it is now known that as early as the tenth 
century the Russian empire had attained an extent and importance, 
as great, comparatively, among the powers of Europe, as it boasts at 
the present day. About the middle of the eleventh century the 
system of dividing the kingdom among the children of successive 
monarchs began to prevail, and the result was ruinous in the ex- 
treme, jDccasioning innumerable intestine wars, and a gradual decline 
of the strength and consideration of the empire. 

3. Toward the middle of the thirteenth century the Tartar hordes 
of Northern Asia, falling upon the feeble and disunited Russian 
States, found them an easy prey ; and during a period of two hun- 
dred and fifty years, Russia, under the Tartar yoke, sufi"ered the 
direst atrocities of savage cruelty and despotism. At length, about 
the year 1480, John III., duke of Moscow, the true restorer of his 

1. Dnieper, the Borystkencs of the ancients, still frequently called by its ancient name, is a 
large river of European Russia. It rises near Sraolensko, runs south, and falls into the Black 
Sea, north-east of the mouths of the Danube. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. JVovogorod, or Novgorod, called also Veliki, or " the Great," formerly the most important 
city in the Russian empire, is situated on the river Volkhof, near its exit from Lake Ilmen, 
one hundred miles south-east from St. Petersburgh, and three lumdred and five north-wesl 
from Moscow. The Volkhof runs north to Lake Ladoga. So impregnable was Novgorod 
once deemed as to give rise to the proverb, 

Qiiis contra Dens ct magnam J^ovogordiam 7 
"Who can resist the Gods and Great Novgorod?" 
From Novgorod to Kiev is a distance of nearly six hundred miles. 



310 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

country's glory, succeeded in abolishing the ruinous system by which 
the regal power had been frittered away, while at the same time he 
threw ofif the yoke of the Moguls, and repulsed their last invasion 
of his country. Under the reign of this wise and powerful prince, 
the many petty principalities which had long divided the sovereignty 
were consolidated, and, at the end of the century, Russia, although 
scarcely emerged from its primitive barbarian darkness, was one of 
the great powers of Europe. 

4. South of the country inhabited by the Russians^ we look in 

vain, at the close of the fifteenth century, for the once 
"^empire'^^ famed Grreek empire of Justinian, or, as sometimes called, 

the Eastern empire of the Romans. The account which 
we have given of the crusades represents the Turks, a race of Tartar 
origin, as spread over the greater part of Asia Minor. About the 
beginning of the fourteenth century, a Turkish emir,^ called Otto- 
man, succeeded in uniting several of the 'peitj Turkish States of the 
peninsula, and thus laid the foundation of the Ottoman empire. 
About the year 1358 the Ottoman Turks first obtained a foothold in 
Europe ; and at the close of the fourteenth century their empire ex- 
tended from the Euphrates to the Danube, and embraced, or held as 
tributary, ancient Grreece, Thes' saly, Macedonia, and Thrace, while 
the Roman world was contracted to the city of Constantinople, and 
even that was besieged by the Turks, and closely pressed by the ca- 
lamities of war and famine. The city would have yielded to the 
efibrts of Bajazet, the Turkish sultan ; but almost in the moment of 
victory the latter was overthrown by the famous Timour, or Tamer- 
lane, the new Tartar conqueror of Asia. 

5. About the year 1370, Tamerlane, a remote descendant of the 
Great G-engis Khan, (p. 286,) had fixed the capital of his nev; do- 
minions at Samarcand,* from which central point of his power he 

1. Samarcand, anciently called Marakanda, now a cily of Independent Tartary, in Bokhara, 
was the capital of the Persian satrapy of Sogdiana. (See J\Iap No. IV.) Alexander is thought 
to have pillaged it. It was taken from the sultan Mahomet, by Gengis Khan, in 1220 ; and 
under Timour, or Tamerlane, it became the capital of one of the largest empires in the world, 
and the centre of Asiatic learning and civilization, at the same time that it rose to high dis- 
tinction on account of its extensive commerce with all parts of Asia. Samarcand is now in a 

a. Emir, an Arabic word, meaning a leader, or commander, was a title first given to the 
caliphs ; but when they assumed the title of sultan, that of emir was applied to their children. 
At length it was bestowed upon all who M'ere thought to be descendants of Mahomet in the 
line of his daughter Falimah. 



CiiAP. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 311 

made thirty-five victorious campaigns, — conquering all Persia, North- 
ern Asia, and Hindostan, — and before his death he had ^^ xARXAa 
placed the crowns of twenty-seven kingdoms on his ejipirk of 
head. In the year 1402 he fought a bloody and decisive '^amerlank. 
battle with the Turkish sultan Bajazet, on the plains of Angora,^ in 
Asia Minor, in which the Turk sustained a total defeat, and fell into 
the hands of the conqueror. Tamerlane would have carried his 
conquests into Europe ; but the lord of myriads of Tartar horsemen 
was not master of a single galley ; and the two passages of the Bos- 
porus and the Hellespont were guarded, the one by the Christians, 
the other by the Turks, who on this occasion forgot their animosities 
to act with union and firmness in the common cause. Two years 
later Tamerlane died, at the age of sixty-nine, while on his march 
for the invasion of China 

6. The Ottoman empire not only soon recovered from the blow 
which Tamerlane had ipflicted upon it, but in the year 1453, during 
the reign of Mahomet II., effected the final conquest of Constanti- 
nople. On the 29th of May of that year the city was carried by 
assault, and given up to the unrestrained pillage of the Turkish 
soldiers : the last of the Glreek emperors fell in the first onset : the 
inhabitants were carried into slavery ; and Constantinople was left 
without a prince or a people, until the sultan established his own 
residence, and that of his successors, on the commanding spot which 
had been chosen by Constantino. The few remnants of the Greek 
or Roman power were soon merged in the Ottoman dominion ; and 
at the close of the fifteenth century the Turkish empire was firmly 
established in Europe. 

7. While at the close of the fifteenth century the three Scandina- 
vian kingdoms of the North, and Eussia, formed, as it 

- ^ - . , ... V. POLAND. 

were, separate worlds, havmg no connection with the 

rest of Europe, Poland,^ the ancient Sarmatia, supplying the connect- 

decayed condition : gardens, fields, and plantations, occupy the place of its numerous streets 
and mosques ; and we search in vain for its ancient palaces, whose beauty is so highly eulo- 
gized by Arab historians. 

1. Angora, a town of Natolia in Asia Minor, (see Note, Roum, p. 281,) is the same as the 
ancient Ancyra, which, in the time of Nero, was the capital of Galalia. Here St. Paul preached 
to the Galatians. 

2. The Poles were a Sclavonic tribe (a branch of the Sarmatians), who, in the seventh cen- 
tury, passed up the Dnieper, and thence to the Niemen and the Vistula. Aboiit the middle of 
the tenth century they embraced Christianity, and toward the end of the same century were 
first called Poles, thai is, f^davonians of the plain. The numerous principalities into which 



3 1-2 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ing link between tlie Sclavonian and German tribes, bad risen to a 
considerable degree of eminence and power. The history of Poland 
commences with the tenth century ; but the prosperity of the king- 
dom began with the reign of Casimir the Great. (1333-1370.) In 
the year 1386 Lithuania^ was added to Poland; and about the mid- 
dle of the following century the Polish sovereign, AVladislas, was 
presented with the crown of Hungary, which he had nobly defended 
against the Turks. But Hungary soon reverted again to the German 
empire. After long wars with the Teutonic knights,'^ who, since the 
crusades, had firmly established their order in the Prussian part of 
the Germanic empire, the knights were everywhere defeated during 
the reign of Casimir IV., (1444-1492,) who added a large part of 
Prussia to the Polish territories. The Turkish province of Mol- 
davia' also became tributary to Poland ; and at the close of the fif- 
teenth century this kingdom had extended its power from the Baltic 
to the Euxine, along the whole frontier of European civilization, 
thus forming an effectual barrier to the Western States of Europe 
against barbarian invasion. 

8. The German empire, at the close of the fifteenth century, com- 
prised a great number of States lying between France and Poland, 
extending even west of the Rhine, and embracing the whole of cen- 

the Poles were divided were first united into one kingdom in 1025, under king Boleslaus I. ; 
but Poland was afterwards subdivided among the family of the Piasts imtil 1305, when Wladis- 
las, king of Cracow, united with hiss overeignly the two principal remaining divisions. Great 
and Little Poland. From 1370 to 1382 Hungary was united with Poland. The union with 
Lithuania in 1386, occasioned by the marriage of the grand duke of Lithuania with the queen 
of Poland, was more permanent. After the Lithuania nobility, in 1569, united with Great and 
Little Poland, in one diet, Poland became the most powerful State in the North. Although Po- 
land has ceased to constitute an Independent and single State — Its detached fragments having 
become Austrian, Prussian, or Russian provinces -still the country is distinctly separated from 
those which surround it, by national character, language, and manners. The present Poland 
possessing the name without the privileges of a kingdom, and reduced to a territory extending 
two hundred miles north and south, and two hundred east and west, is, substantially, a part of 
the Russian empire. (Map No. XVII.) 

1. The greater part of Lithuania, once forming the north-eastern division of Poland, has 
been united to Russia. It is comprised in the present governments of Mohilew, Witepsk, 
Minsk, Wilna, and Grodno. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. The Teutonic Knights composed a religious order founded in 1190 by Frederic, duke of 
8iiabia, during a crusade in the Holy Land, and intended to be confined to Germans of noble 
rank. The original object of the association was to defend the Christian religion against the 
infidels, and to take care of the sick in the Holy Land. By degrees the order made several 
conquests, and acquired great riches ; and at the beginning of the fifteenth century it possessed 
a large extent of territory extending from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland. The war with 
the Poles greatly abridged its power, and finally the order was abolished by Napoleon, in the 
war with Austria, April 24th, 1809. 

3. Moldavia, nominally a Turkish province, but in reality under the protection of Russia, 
embraces the north-eastern part of the ancient Dacia. (Maps Nos. IX. and XVII.) 



Chap. IL] MIDDLE AGES. 313 

tral Europe. The Carlovingian sovereigns of Germany were hered- 
itary monarchs ; but as early as the year 887 the great 
vassals of the crown deposed their emperor, and elected ^^" ^^^^^^^' 
another sovereign, and from that remote period the em- 
perors of Germany have continued to be elective. 

9. Owing to the great number of the Germanic States, which were 
of different grades, from large principalities down to free cities and 
the estates of earls or counts — the frequent changes of territorj^ 
among them, by marriages, alliances, and conquests, — the weakness 
of the federal tie by which they were united — and their conflicting- 
interests, and frequent wars with each other and with the emperor, — - 
the history of Germany is exceedingly complicated, and generally 
devoid of great points of interest. Many of the States had their 
own sovereigns, subordinate to their common emperor. About the 
middle of the fourteenth century there were three powerful States in 
Germany, which had absorbed nearly all the rest. These were Isfc, 
Luxemburg ^^ which possessed Bohemia,'^ Moravia,^ and part of Si- 
lesia,* and Lusatia :^ 2d, Bavaria, which had acquired Brandenburg,* 
Holland,'^ and the Tyrol f and 3d, Austria,^ which, in addition to a 

1. The Grand Duchy of Luzemburg was divided iii the year 1839, between Holland and Bel- 
gium. The town of Luxemburg, one hundred and eighty-flve miles north-east from Paris, 
containing one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, belongs, with a portion of the surround- 
ing country, to Holland. {Map No. XV.) 

2. Bohemia, having Silesia and Saxony on the north, Moravia and the arch-duchy of Austria 
on the south-east, and Bavaria on the west, forms an important portion of the Austrian empire. 
{Map No. XVIl.) 

3. Moraiiia, an important province of Austria, lies easjt of Bohemia. In 1783 a portion of 
Silesia was incorporated with it. Moravia is the country anciently occupied by the Quadi and 
Marcomanni, who waged fierce wars against the Romans. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Silesia is north-east of Bohemia and Moravia, embracing the country on both sides of the 
Oder. {MapNoXVn.) 

5. Lusatia was a tract of country having Brandenburg on the north, Silesia on the east, Bo- 
hemia and Bavaria on the south, and Meissen on the west. It is now embraced in the east- 
ern part of the kingdom of Saxony, east of Dresden, the southern part of Brandenburg, and 
the north-western part of Silesia. It was divided into Upper and Lower Lusatia, the former 
being the southern portion of the territory. {Map No. XVII.) 

6. Brandenbtirg, the most important of the Prussian States, lies between Mecklenburg and 
Pomerania on the north, and West Prussian Saxony and the kingdom of Saxony on the south. 
It includes Berlin, the capital of the Prussian empire. {Map No. XVII.) 

7. Holland has the Prussian German States on the south-east, Belgium on the south, and 
the sea on the west. {Maps Nos. XV. and XVII.) 

8. The Tyrol, (comprising the ancient Rhcetia with a part of Noricum, see Map No. IX.,) 
is a province of the Austrian empire, east of Switzerland, and having Bavaria on the north, 
and Lombardy on the south. The Tyrolese, although warmly attached to liberty, have always 
been steadfast adherents of Austria. {Map No. XVII.) 

9. The arch-duchy of Austria, the nucleus and centre of the Austrian empire, lies on both 
sides of the Danube, having Bohemia and Moravia on the north, and Styria and Carinthia on 
the south. In the time of Charlemagne, about the year 800, the raargravate of Austria was 



314 ■ MODERN HISTORY. [Paet IL 

large number of hereditary States, possessed mucli of the Suabian 
territory. (See Suabia, p. 270.) 

10. In the year 1438 the G^erman princes elected an emperor from 
the house of Austria; and, ever since, an Austrian prince, with 
scarcely any intermission, has occupied the throne of Germany. 
Near the close of the fifteenth century the German States, then 
under the reign of Maximilian of the house of Austria, made an im- 
portant change in their condition, by which the private wars and 
feuds, which the laws then authorized, and the right to carry on 
vvhicli against each other the petty States regarded as the bulwark 
of their liberty, were made to give place to regular courts of justice 
for the settlement of national controversies. In the year 1495, at a 
general diet held at Worms,^ the plan of a Perpetual Public Peace 
was subscribed to by the several States : oppression, rapine, and vio- 
lence, were made to yield to the authority of laiv^ and the public 
tranquillity was thus, for the first time in Germany, established on a 
firm basis. 

11. For a considerable period previous to the beginning of the 

fourteenth century, Switzerland, the Helvetia of the Ko- 
zERLrNo" i^^^^^j ^^^^ formed an integral part of the Germanic em- 
pire ; but in the year 1307 the house of Austria, under 
the usurp ID g emperor Albert, endeavored to extend his sway over the 
rude mountaineers of that inhospitable land. The tyranny of Aus- 
ti-ia provoked the league of Rutuli \^ the famous episode of the hero 
William Tell ^ gave a new impulse to the cause of freedom ; and in 

formed south of the Danube, by a body of militia which protected the south-east of Germany 
from the incursions of the Asiatic tribes. In 1156 its territory was extended north of the Dan- 
Tibe, and made a duchy. In 1438 the ruling dynasty of Austria obtained the electoral crowu 
of the German emperors, and in 1453 Austria was raised to an arch-duchy. In 1526 it acquired 
Bohemia and Hungary, and attained the rank of a European monarcliy. {Map No. XVII.) 

1. Worms is on the weat bank of the Rhine, forty-two miles south-west from Frankfort, 
{Map No. XVII.) 

2. Rutuli was a meadow slope under the Salzburg mountain, in the canton of Uri, and on 
the west bank of the Lake of Lucerne, where the confederates were wont to assemble at dead 
of night, to consult for the salvation of their country. {Map No. XIV.) 

3. The story of TViUiam Tdl, one of the confederates of Rutuli, is, briefly, as follows. Gess- 
ler the Austrian governor had carried his insolence so far as to cause his hat to be placed 
upon a pole, as a symbol of the sovereign power of Austria, and to order that all who passed 
should uncover their heads and bow before it. Tell, having passed the hat without making 
obeisance, was summoned before Gessler, who, knowing that he was a good archer, command- 
ed him to shoot, from'a great distance, an apple placed on the head of his own sou, — promis- 
ing him his life if he succeeded. Tell hit the apple, but, accidentally dropping a concealed 
arrow, was asked by the tyrant why he had brought two arrows with him ? " Had I shot my 
child," replied the archer, "the second shaft was for thee: — and, be sure, I should not have 



VIII. ITALIAN 
HISTORY, 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 315 

the year 1308 the imited cantons of UrI, Schwytz, and Unterwalden/ 
strucK their first blow for liberty, and expelled their oppressors from 
the country. In 1315 the Swiss gained a great victory over the 
Austrians at Morgarten,^ and another at Sempach^ in 1386 ; but they 
were regarded as belonging to the Germanic empire until about the 
close of the fifteenth century, when, in the famous Suabian war, army 
after army of the Austrians was defeated, and the emperor Maxi- 
milian himself compelled to effect a disgraceful retreat. This was 
the last war of the early Swiss confederates in the cause of freedom ; 
and the peace concluded with Maximilian in 1499 established the 
independence of Switzerland. 

r2. The condition of Italy during the central period of the Mid- 
dle Ages has already been described. (Sec II.) At the close of 
that period Italy still formed, nominally, a part of the 
G-ermanic empire ; but the authority of the German em- 
perors had silently declined during the preceding cen- 
turies, until at length it was reduced to the mere ceremony of core 
nation, and the exercise of a few honorary and feudal rights over the 
Lombard vassals of the crown. In the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies, numerous republics had sprung up in Italy ; and, animated 
by the spirit of liberty, they for a time enjoyed an unusual degree 
of prosperity ; but eventually, torn to pieces by contending factions, 
and a prey to mutual and incessant hostilities, they fell under the 
tyranny of one despot after another, until, in the early part of the 
fifteenth century, Florence, Geuoa,^ and Venice, were the only im- 

missed my mark a second time.'' Gessler, in a. rage not unmixed with terror, declared that 
altliough he had promised Tell his life, he should pass it in a dungeon ; and taking his captive 
bound, started in a boat to cross the Lake of Lucerne, to his fortress. But a violent storm 
arising, Tell was set at liberty, and the helm committed to his hands. He guided the boat suc- 
cessfully to the shore, when, seizing his bow, by a daring leap he sprung upon a rock, leaving 
the barque to wrestle with the billows. Gessler escaped the storm, but only to fall by the un- 
erring arrow of Tell. The death of Gessler was a signal for a general rising of the Swiss cantona. 

1. Uri, Scliwytz, Unterwaldev, see J\Iap No. XIV. 

2. Morg-arten, the narrow pass in which the battle was fo\ight, is on the eastern shore of the 
small Lake of Egeri, in the canton of Schwylz, seventeen miles east from Lucerne. (Map 
No. XIV.) 

3. Sevipach is a small town on the cast bank of the small lake of tiie same name, seven miles 
northwest from Lucerne. {Map No. XIV.) 

4. Genoa, a maritime city of northern Italy, is at the head of the gulf of the same name, 
seventy-five miles south-east from Turin. After the downfall of the empire of Charlemagne, 
Genoa erected itself into a republic. In 1174 it possessed an extensive territory in north-west- 
ern Italy, nearly all of Provence, and the island of Corsica. Genoa carried on long wars with 
Pisa and Venice,— that with the latter being one of the most memorable in the Italian annals of 
the Middle Ages. 



316 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

portant States that had escaped the general catastrophe. Nearly all 
the numerous free towns and republics of Lombardy had been con- 
quered by the duchy of Milan, which acknowledged a direct de- 
pendence on the Grerman emperor. 

13. The Florentines, who greatly enriched themselves by their 
commerce and manufactures, maintained their republican form of 
government, from about the close of the twelfth century, during a 
period of nearly two hundred and fifty years. The Genoese and Ve- 
netians,, whose commercial interests thwarted each other, both in the 
Levant^ and the Mediterranean, quarreled repeatedly; but eventu- 
ally the Venetians gained the superiority, and retained the command 
of the sea in their own hands. Of all the Italian republics, Genoa 
was the most agitated by internal dissensions ; and the Genoese, vol- 
atile and inconstant, underwent frequent voluntary changes of mas- 
ters. At the close of the fifteenth century Genoa was a dependency 
of the duchy of Milan, although subsequently it recovered once more 
its ancient state of independence. 

14. Venice, to whose origin we have already alluded, was the 
earliest, and, for a long time, the most considerable, commercial city 
of modern Europe. At a very early period the Venetians began to 
trade with Constantinople and other eastern cities ; the crusades, to 
which their shipping contributed, increased their wealth, and extend- 
ed their commerce and possessions ; and toward the end of the fif- 
teenth century, besides several rich provinces in Lombardy, the re- 
public was mistress of Crete and Cyprus, of the greater part of the 
Morea,^ or Southern Greece, and of most of the isles in the ^gean 
Sea. The additional powers that at this time shared the dominion 
of Italy, were the popes, and the kings of Naples ; but the temporal 
domains of the former were small, and those of the latter soon passed 
into other hands ; for the continual wars which all the Italian States 
waged with each other had already encouraged foreign powers to 
form plans of conquest over them. In the j'^ear 1500 Ferdinand of 
Spain deprived France of Naples ; and from this time the Spaniards, 
who were already masters of Sicily and Sardinia, became, for more 
than a hundred years, the predominating power in Ital}^ 

1. Tlie Levant is a terra applied to designate the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, from 
southern Greece to Egypt. In the Middle Ages the trade with these countries was almost 
exclusively in the hands of the Italians, who gave to them the general appellation of Levants., 
or eastern countries. (Italian, Levante : French, Levant.) 

2. JHorea, the ancient Peloponnesus, or southern Greece, is said to derive its modern name 
from its resemblance lo a mulberry leaf. (Greek, morca, a mulberry tree.) 



OnAP. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 317 

15. Turning to Spain, we behold there, in the beginning of the 
fifteenth century, the three Christian States of Navarre,^ 
Aragon,^ Castile' and Leon" united, and the Moorish ^^' ^^^^^' 
kingdom of Granada.^ Frequent dissensions among the Christian 
States had long prevented unity of action among them, but in the 
year 1474 Ferdinand V. ascended the throne of Aragon ; and, as 
he had previously married Isabella, a princess of Castile, the two 
most powerful Christian States were thus united. The plan of ex- 
pelling the Moors from Spain had long been agitated; and in 1481 
the war for that purpose was commenced by Ferdinand and Isabella. 
Ten years, however, were spent in the sanguinary strife, before the 

1. JVavarre is in the northern part of Spain, having France and the Pyrenees on the north, 
Aragon on the east, Old Castile on the south, and the Basque provinces (Biscay, Guipuzcoa, 
and Alava) on the west. A portion of ancient Navarre extended north of the Pyrenees, and 
afterwards formed the French province of Beam. (See JI/ajb No. XIII.) During many cen- 
turies Navarre was an independent kingdom, but in 1284 it became united, by intermarriage, 
with that of France. In 1329 it again obtained a sovereign of its own. Although still claimed 
by France, in 1512 Ferdinand of Aragon united all the country south of the Pyrenees to the 
crown of Spain. In 1590 Henry IV., grandson of Henry king of Navarre, ascended the throne 
of France ; and from that time to the reign of Charles X., the French monarchs, (with the ex- 
ception of Napoleon,) assumed the title of "king of France and Navarre ;" but only the small 
portion of Navarre north of the Pyrenees remained annexed to the French monarchy. Span- 
ish Navarre is still governed by its separate laws, and has, nominally at least, the same con- 
stitution which it enjoyed when it was a separate monarchy ; but its sovereignty is vested in 
the Spanish crown. {J\Iap No. XIII.) 

2. dragon was bounded on the north by the Pyrenees, east by Catalonia, south by Valencia, 
and west by Castile and Navarre. While a separate kingdom it was the most powerful of the 
peninsular States, and comprised, in 1479, under the sovereignty of Ferdinand, exclusive of 
Aragon proper, Navarre, Catalonia, Valencia, and Sardinia. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. Castile is the central and largest division of modern Spain. The northern portion being 
that first recovered from the Saracens, is called Old Castile, and comprises the modern prov- 
inces of Burgos, Soria, Segovia, and Avila : the southern portion, called New Castile, comprises 
the provinces of Madrid, Guadalaxara, Cuenca, Toledo, and La Mancha. After the expulsion 
of the Saracens, and various vicissitudes, the sovereignty of Castile was vested by marriage in 
Sancho III. king of Navarre, whose son Ferdinand was made king of Castile in 1034. Three 
years later he was crowned king of Leon. The crowns of Castile and Leon were repeatedly 
separated and united, till, by the marriage of Isabella, who held both crowns, with Ferdinand, 
king of Aragon, in 1497, the three kingdoms were consolidated into one. {J\Iap No. XIII.) 

4. The kingdom of Leon was bounded north by Asturias, east by Old Castile, south by Es- 
tremadura, and west by Galicia and Portugal. During the eighth century, this district, after 
the expulsion of the Moors, was formed into a kingdom, called after its capital, and connected 
with Asturias. It was first added to Castile in 1037, in the reign of Ferdinand I. king of Cas- 
tile, who was king of Leon in right of his wife ; but it continued in an unsettled state till 1230, 
when it was finally united, by inheritance, to the dominions of Ferdinand III. king of Castile. 
(.Map No. XIII ) 

5. G-anada, consisting of the south-eastern part of ancient Andalusia, (Note p. 232,) is on 
tJie Mediterranean coast, in the south-eastern part of Spain. On the breaking up of the Afri- 
can empire in Spain, in the year 1238, Mohammed ben Alhamar founded the Moorish king- 
dom of Granada, making the city of Granada his capital. Granada remained in the possession 
of the Moors two hundred and fifty years, which comprise the season of its prosperity. In 
1492 it surrendered to Ferdinand the Catholic, being the last foothold of Saracen power in 
Bpain. (Map No. XIII.) 



318 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Christians were enabled to besiege Granada, the Moorish capital ; 
but the capitulation of that city in January, 1492, put an end to the 
Saracen dominion in the Spanish peninsula, after it had existed there 
during a period of eight hundred years. In the year 1512 Ferdi- 
nand invaded and conquered Navarre ; and thus the whole of Spain 
was united under the same government. 

16. Toward the close of the eleventh century, the frontier province 

of Portugal,^ which had been conquered by the Chris- 

XI. FOR- i[.^Y^^ from the Moors, was formed into an earldom 

TUGAL. ' 

tributary to Leon and Castile ; but in the twelfth cen- 
tury it was erected into an independent kingdom, and in the early 
part of the thirteenth it had reached its present limits. The history 
of Portugal is devoid of general interest, until the period of those 
voyages and discoveries of which the Portuguese were the early pro- 
moters, and which have shed immortal lustre on the Portuguese name. 

III. Discoveries. — 1. A brief account of the discoveries of the 
fifteenth century will close the present chapter. From the subver- 
sion of the Roman empire, until the revival of letters which succeed- 
ed the Dark Ages, no advance was made in the art of navigation ; 
and even the little geographical knowledge that had been acquired 

1. Portugal, anciently called Lusitania, (Note p. 166,) was taken possession of by the Ro- 
mans about two hundred years before the Christian era ; previously to which the Phoenicians, 
Carthaginians, and Greeks, traded to its shores, and probably planted colonies there. In the fifih 
century it was inundated by the Germanic tribes, and in 712 was conquered by the Saracens. 
Soon after, the Spaniards of Castile and Leon, aided by the native inhabitants, wresled north- 
ern Portugal, between the Miniio and the Douro, from the Moors, and placed counts or govern- 
ors over this region. About the close of the eleventh century Henry, a Burgundian prince, 
came into Spain to seek his fortune by his sword, in the wars against the Rloors. Alphonso 
VI. king of Castile and Leon, gave to the chivalric stranger the hand of his daughter in mar- 
riage, and also the earldom of the Christian provinces of Portugal. In 1139 the Portuguese 
earl, Alphonso I., having gained a brilliant victory over the Moors, his soldiers proclaimed him 
king on the field of battle ; and Portugal became an independent kingdom. Its power now 
rapidly increased : it maintained its independence against the claims of Castile and Leon ; and 
Alphonso extended his dominions to the borders of Algarve, in the south. In 1249 Alphonso 
ILL conquered Algarve, and thus, in the final overthrow of the Moorish power in Portugal, ex- 
tended the kingdom to its present limits. - 

The language of Portugal is merely a dialect of the Spanish ; but the two people regard 
each other with a deep-rooted national antipathy. The character attributed to the Portuguese 
is not very flattering. " Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a good Portuguese 
of him," says the Spanish proverb. " I have heard it more truly said," says, Dr. Southey, 
"add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices, and you have the Portuguese character. The two na- 
tions differ, perhaps purposely, in many of their habits. Almost every man in Spain smokes ; 
the Portuguese never smoke, but most of them take snuff. None of the Spaniards will use a 
wheelbarrow : none of the Portuguese will carry a burden : the one says, ' it is only fit for beasts 
to draw carriages ;' the other, that ' it is fit only for beasts to carry burdens.' " {Map No. XIII.) 



Chap. II.] MIDDLE AGES. 319 

was nearly lost during that gloomy period. Upon the returning 
dawn of civilization, however, commerce again revived ; and tho 
Italian States, of which Venice, Pisa,' and G-enoa, took the lead, 
soon became distinguished for their enterprising commercial spirit. 
The discover}'- of the magnetic needle gave a new impulse to naviga- 
tion, as it enabled the mariner to direct his bark with increased bold- 
ness and confidence farther from the coast, out of sight of whose 
landmarks he before seldom dared venture ; while the invention of 
the art of printing disseminated more widely the knowledge of new 
discoveries in geography and navigation. In the fourteenth century 
the Canary^ islands, believed to be the Fortunate islands of tho 
ancients, were accidentally rediscovered by the crew of a French 
ship driven thither by a storm. But the career of modern discovery 
was prosecuted with the greatest ardor by the Portuguese. Under 
the patronage of prince Henry, son of king John the First, Cape 
Bojador, before considered an impassable limit on the African coast, 
was doubled ; the Cape de Verd ^ and Azore* islands were discovered ; 
and the greatest part of the African coast, from Cape Blanco to 
Cape de Yerd, was explored. (1419 — 1430.) 

2. The grand idea which actuated prince Henry, was, by circum- 
navigating Africa, to open an easier and less expensive route to the 
Indies, and thus to deprive the Italians of the commerce of those 
fertile regions, and turn it at once upon his own country. Although 
prince Henry died before he had accomplished the great object of 
his ambition, the fame of the discoveries patronized by him had 
rendered his name illustrious, and the learned, the curious, and the 



1. Pisa, the capital of one of the most celebrated republics of Italy, and now the capital of 
the province of its own name in the grand duchy of Tuscany, is on the river Arno, about 
eight miles from its entrance into the Mediterranean, and thirteen miles north-east from Leg- 
horn. In the tenth century Pisa took the lead among the commercial republics of Italy, and 
in the eleventh century its fleet of galleys maintained a superiority in <lhe Mediterranean. !n 
the thirteenth century a struggle with Genoa commenced, which, after many vicissitudes, ended 
in the total ruin of the Pisans. Pisa subsequently became the prey of various petty tyrants, 
and was finally united to Florence in 1400. 

2. The Canaries are a group of fourteen islands belonging to Spain. The peak of Tencriffo, 
a half extinct volcano, on one of the more distant islands, is about two hundred and fitly miles 
from the north-west coast of Africa, and eight hundred miles south-west from the straits of 
Gibraltar. 

3. The Cape de Verd islands, belonging to Portugal, are off the west coast of Africa, about 
three hundred and twenty miles west from Cape de Verd. 

4. The .Azores (az-6res') are about eight hundred miles west from Portugal. The name is 
said to be derived from the vast number of hawks, (called by the Portuguese aQor,) by which 
they were freciuented. At the time of their discovery they were luiinhabited, and covered with 
forest and underwood. 



320 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

adventurous, repaired to Lisbon^ to increase their knowledge by the 
discoveries of the Portuguese, and to join in their enterprises. Among 
them Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, arrived there about 
the year 1470. He had already made himself familiar with the 
navigation of the Mediterranean, and had visited Iceland ;^ and he 
now accompanied the Portuguese in their expeditions to the coast of 
Guinea^ and the African islands. But while others were seeking a 
passage to India by the slow and tedious process of sailing around 
the southern extremity of Africa, the bold and daring mind of Co- 
lumbus conceived the project of reaching the desired land by a west- 
ern route, directly across the Atlantic. The spherical figure of the 
earth was then known, and Columbus doubted not that our globe 
might be circumnavigated. 

3. Of the gradual maturing and development of the theory of Co- 
lumbus, — of the poverty and toil which he endured, and the ridicule, 
humiliation, and disappointments which he encountered, as he wan- 
dered from court to court, soliciting the patronage which ignorance, 
bigotry, prejudice, and pedantic pride, so long denied him, — and of his 
final triumph, in the discovery of a new continent, equal to the old 
world in magnitude, and separated by vast oceans from all the earth 
before known to civilized man, — our limits forbid us to enter into 
details, and it would likewise be superfluous, as these events have al- 
ready been familiarized to American readers by the chaste and glow- 
ins; narrative of their countryman Irving. In the year 1492, the 
genius of Columbus, more than realizing the dreams of Plato's 
famous Atlantis,* revealed to the civilized world another hemisphere, 

1. Lisbon, the capital and principal seaport of Portugal, is situated on the right bank, and 
near the mouth, of the Tagus. The Moors captured the city in the year 716, and, with some 
slight exceptions, it remained in their power till, in 1145, Alphonso I. made it the capital of 
his kingdom. (Map No. Xlll.) 

2. Iceland is a large island in the Northern Ocean, on the confines of the polar circle. It 
was discovered by a Norwegian pirate in the year 881, and was soon after settled by Norwe- 
gians. In the year 928 the inhabitants formed themselves into a republic, which existed nearly 
four hundred years ; after which Iceland again became subject to Norway. On the amiexation 
of that kingdom to Denmark, Iceland was transferred with it. 

3. Guinea is a name applied by European geographers to designate that portion of the Afri- 
can coast extending from about eleven degrees north of the equator, to seventeen degrees 

sou til. 

4. ..Atlantis was a celebrated island supposed to have existed at a very early period in the 
Athintic Ocean, and to have been, eventually, sunk beneath its waves. Plato is the first who 
gives an account of it, and he obtained his information from the priests of Egypt. The state- 
ment which he furnishes is substantially as follows : 

" In the Atlantic Ocean, over against the pillars of Hercules, lay a very large and fertile 

lalni'*''! "ujfioao cni*fo«rt ■«'.>-■' v.^wt- A-J T - -" 



Chap. II.J MIDDLE AGES. 321 

and first opened a communication between Europe and America that 
will never cease while the waters of the ocean continue to roll be- 
tween them. Five years after the discovery of America, Yasco de 
Gama, a Portuguese admiral, doubled the Cape of Grood Hope, and 
had the glory of carrying his national flag as far as India. These 
were the closing maritime enterprises of the fifteenth century : they 
opened to the Old World new scenes of human existence : new na- 
tions, new races, and new continents, rapidly crowded upon the 
vision ; and imagination tired in contemplating the future wonders 
that the genius of discovery was about to develop. 

there was a passage to a large continent lying beyond. The island of Atlantis was thickly set- 
tled and very powerful : its kings extended their sway over Africa as far as Egypt, and over 
Europe until they were checked by the Athenians, who, opposing themselves to the invaders, 
became the conquerors. But at length that Atlantic island, by a flood and earthquake, was 
suddenly destroyed, and for a long time afterwards the sea thereabouts was full of rocks and 
shoals." 

A dispute arose among the ancient philosophers whether Plato's statement was based upon 
reality, or was a mere creation of fancy. Posidonius thought it worthy of belief : Pliny re- 
mains undecided. Among modem writers, Rudbeck labors to prove that Sweden was the 
Atlantis of the ancients : Bailly places it in the farthest regions of the north, believing that the 
Atlantides were the far-famed Hyperboreans ; while others connect America, with its Mexican 
and Peruvian remains of a remote civilization, with the legend of the lost Atlantis. In con- 
nection with this view they point to the peculiar conformation of our continent along the 
shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where everything indicates the sinking, at a remote period, of a 
large tract of land, the place of which is now occupied by the waters of the Gulf. And may 
not the mountain tops of this sunken land still appear to view as the islands of the West Indian 
group ; and may not the large continent lying beyond Atlantis and the adjacent islands have 
been none other than America ? 

21 



322 MODERN HISTORY. [Part TI 



CHAPTER III. 

EUROPEAN HISTORY DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

I. INTRODUCTORY. 

ANALYSIS. I. The unity of ancient history. IIow broken, in the history of the Middle 
Ages. Still less unity in modern history. How, only, confusion can be avoided.— 2. Approxi- 
mation towards a knowledge of universal history. Future plan of the work. What must not 
be overlooked, and what alone we can hope to accomplish. — 3. State of Europe at the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century. Condition of Persia. Mogul empire in Hindostan. China. 
Egypt. The New World. Where, only, we look for historic unity. 

II. THE AGE OF HENRY VIII., AND CHARLES V. 

1. Rise of the States-system of Europe. Growing intricacy of the relations between 
States. — 2. Causes of the first development of the States-system. — 3. The Great power of Austria 
under Charles V. — 4. Ferdinand, the brother of Charles. Philip II., son of Charles. — 5. Beginning 

of THE RIVALRY BETWEEN FraNCIS I. AND ChARLES V. The faVOr Of HeNRY VIII. OF ENG- 
LAND courted by both. — 6. Favorable position of Henry at the time of his accession. — 7. Ef- 
forts of Charles and Francis to win his favor. The result. — 8. Efforts of Francis to recover 
Navarre. The Italian war that followed. Francis defeated, and made prisoner, in the battle 
of Pa via. [House of BoiLrhon.'] — 9. Imprisonment, and release, of Francis. — 10. A general 
league against Charles V. — 11. Operations of the duke of Bourbon in Italy. Pillage of Rome, 
and death of Bourbon. — 12, Captivity of the pope. The French army in Italy. The peace of 
Cambray. — 1:'. The domestic relations of Henry VIII. — 14. The rise, power, and fall, of Wolsey. 
[Wolsey's soliloquy.] 

J5. The Reformation. The maxim of religious freedom. Papal power and pretensions at 
this period. Persecution of reformers. [Wickliffe. Council of Constance. The Albigenses.] 
Effect of advancing civilization on papal power. Avarice of pope Leo. X. Indulgences. 
Martin Luther. [Wittemberg.] — 16. Luther's first opposition to the Cliurch of Rome. His 
gradual progress in rejecting the doctrines and rites of popery. His writings declared heretical. 
He burns the papal bull of condemnation. — 17. Declaration of the Sorboune. [Sorbonne.] 
The diet of Worms. Henry VIII. joins in opposing Luther.— 18. Circumstances in Luther's 
favor. Decrees ofthe diet of Spires. Protest of the Reformers. [Spires.] — 19. The diet of Augs- 
burg, 1530. [Augsburg.] — r\Ielancthon. Result of the diet. League of the Protestants. Henry 
VIII. and Francis I. favor the Protestant cause. — 20. Invasion of Hungary by the Turks. Cru- 
sade of Charles V. against the Moors. [Algiers ] Renewal of the war by the French monarch. 
[Savoy.] Invasion of France by Charles. — 21. Brief truce, and renewal of the war. [Nice.] 
The Parties to this war, and its results. [Cerisoles. Boulogne.] — 22. War carried on by Charles 
against his Protestant German subjects. Revolt of Maurice of Saxony. — 23. Surprise and mor- 
tification of Charles, and final treaty of Augsburg. [Passau.] 

24, Circumstances which led to the Abdication and retirement of Charles V. [St. .Just.] — 
25. The emperor in his retirement. — 26. The Protestant States of Europe. Character of the Refor- 
mation in England. Religious intolerance of Henry. Character of Henry's government. — 27. 
Brief reign of Edward VI. Reign of Mary. Character of her reign. War with France. [St. 
Quentin.] Death of Mary, and accession of Elizabeth, 1588. 

IIL THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. 
1. The claims of Elizabeth not recognized by the Catholic States. Mary of Scotland.— 2. 
Progress of Protestant principles in England. Philip II. Effect of the rivalry between France 
and Spain.— 3. Death of Henry II. of France. Francis II. and Charles IX. Mary proceeds to 



Chap. III. J SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 323 

Scotland. Principal events of her reign. She throws herself on the protection of Elizabeth.— 
4. The attempts to establish the Inquisition on the continent. Circumstances which led to the 
CIVIL AND RKLiGious WAR IN FRANCE. [Ilavre-de-grace.]— 5. Character of this war. Atroci- 
ties committed on both sides. [Guienne. Daiiphiny.]— 6. Battle of Dreux. Capture of the 
opposing generals, and conclusion of the war by the treaty of Amboise. [Amboise.]— 7. Re- 
newal of the war. The "Lame Peace." Treachery of the Catholics. Peace' of St. Cermain. 
[St. Cermain.]— 8. Designs of the French court. Preparations for the destruction of the Prot- 
estants.— 9. MAssi>cRE OF St. IJARrnoLOMEw.- 10. General massacre throughout the king- 
dom. Noble conduct of some officers. The princes of Navarre and Cond6. Tlie joy excited 
by the massacre.— 11. Effects produced. Renewal of the civil war. The feelings of Charles— 
his sickness, and death. 

12. The duke of Alva's administration of The Netherlands. The •' Pacification of Ghent," 
and expulsion of the Spaniards. [Ghent.]— 13. Causes that led to the " union of Utrecht." 
[Utrecht.] The States-general of 1580. [Antwerp.] Continuance of the war by Philip.— 14, 
The remaining history and fate of Mary of Scotland.— 15. Resentment of the Catholics. Com- 
plaints, and projects of Philip.— 16. Va^ preparations of Philip against England, and sailing of 
THE Spanish Armada. Preparations for resistance.— 17. Disasters, and final destruction of 
the fleet. Important results. Decline of the Spanish power. — 18. History of France during 
the remainder of the sixteenth century. Charles IX., Henry III., and Henry IV. Termination 
of the religious wars by the Edict of Nantes.— 19. History of England after the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada. Irish insurrection of 1598. — 20. Character of Elizabeth. 

IV. COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 

1. Prominent events of the sixteenth century not included in European history. The PoR. 
TUGUESE COLONIAL EMPIRE. Uulou of Portugal with Spain. The Hollanders. [Ormus. 
Coa.] — 2. Spanish colonial empire. Services of Cortez, and the treatment which he rc- 
ceived.— 3. The conquests of Pizarro. The Spanish empire in America at the close of the six- 
teenth century. Influence of the precious metals upon Spain. — 4. The Mogul empire in 
India.— 5. The Persian empire. The reign of Ismael.— 6. The reign of Tamasp. His three 
sons. The youthful Abbas becomes ruler of the empire.— 7. General character of his reign. 
Ilis character as a parent and relative. How he is regarded by the Persians. — 8. Remaining 
history of Persia. 

T. Introductory. — 1. In the history of ancient Europe, two pre- 
dominating nations, — first the Greeks, and afterwards the Romans, 
occupy the field ; preserving, in the mind of the reader, a general 
unity of action and of interest. In the history of the Middle Ages 
this unity is broken by the forcible dismemberment of the Komau 
empire, by the confusion that followed the inroads of the barbarians, 
and that attended their first attempt at social organization, and by 
the introduction of a broader field of inquiry, embracing countries 
and nations previously unknown. In Modern History, subsequent 
to the fifteenth century, there is still less apparent unity, if we con- 
sider the increased extent of the field to be explored, and the stiu 
greater variety of nations, governments, and institutions, submitted 
to our view ; and to avoid inextricable confusion, and dry summaries 
of unintelligible events, we are under the necessity, in a brief com- 
pend like the present, of selecting and developing the principal 
jioinU of historic interest, and of rendering all other matters subor- 
dinate to tlie main design. 



3^4 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

2. But while it would be in vain to attempt, within the limits of a 
work like the present, to give a separate history of every nation, the 
reader should not lose sight of any, — that, as opportunities occur, 
he may have a place in the general framework of history for the stores 
which subsequent reading may accumulate. It was in accordance 
with these views, that, near the close of the preceding chapter, we 
took a general survey of the nations of Europe ; and although a few 
of the European kingdoms will still continue to claim our chief at- 
tention in the subsequent part of this history, we must not shut our 
eyes to the fact that they embraced, during this period, but a small 
portion of the population of the globe ; and that a History, strictly 
universal^ would comprise the cotemporary annals of more than a 
hundred different nations. The extent of the field of modern his- 
tory is indeed vast ; in it we can select only a few verdant spots, with 
which alone we can hope to make the reader familiar ; while the 
riches of many an unexplored region must be left to repay the labor 
of future researches. 

3. At the opening of the sixteenth century. Great Britain, Scot- 
land, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Prussia, and 
Turkey, were distinct and independent nations ; Hungary and Bo- 
hemia were temporarily united under one sovereignty ; Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway, still feebly united by the union of Calmar, 
were soon to be divided again ; the Netherlands, known as the do- 
minions of the house of Burgundy, had become a dependence of the 
Austrian division of the Germanic empire ; and Italy, comprising 
the Papal States, and a number of petty republics and dukedoms, 
was fast becoming the prey of surrounding sovereigns. In the East^ 
Persia, after having been for centuries the theatre of perpetual civil 
wars, revolutions, and changes of no interest to foreigners, again 
emerged from obscurity at the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
and, toward the end of that period, under the Shah Abbas, surnamed 
the Great, established an empire embracing Persia Proper, Media, 
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Farther Armenia. About the same time a 
Tartar or Mogul empire was established in Hindostan by a descend- 
ant of the great conqueror Tamerlane. China was at this time, as 
it had long been, a great empire, although but little known. Egypt, 
under the successors of the victorious Saracens, still preserved the 
semblance of sovereignty, until, in 1517, the Turks reduced it to the 
condition of a province of the Ottoman empire. Such were the 
principal States, kingdoms, and nations, of the Old World, whose 



Chap. III.] SIXTEENTH CENTURA. 325 

annals find a place on the page of universal history ; and, turning 
to the West, beyond the wide ocean whose mysteries had been so re- 
cently unveiled by the Genoese navigator, we find the germs of civil- 
ized nations already starting into being ; — and History must enlarge 
its volume to take in a mere abstract of the annals that now begin 
to press forward for admission to its pages. Amidst this perplexing 
profusion of the materials of history, we turn back to the localities 
already familiar to the reader, and seek for historic unity where only 
it can be found, — in those principles, and events, that have exerted 
a world-wide influence on the progress of civilization, and the des- 
tinies of the human race. 

II. The Age of Henry VIII. and Charles Y. — 1. About the 
period of the beginning of the sixteenth century a new era opens in 
European history, in the rise of what has sometimes been called '^ the 
States-system of Europe:" for it was now that the re- , ^„^o^,^^^ 

•^ _ J- " I. THE STATES- 

ciprocal influences of the European States on each other system of 
began to be exerted on a large scale, and that the weaker Europe. 
States first conceived the idea of a balance-of-power system that 
should protect them against their more powerful neighbors. Hence 
the increasing extent and intricacy of the relations that began to 
grow up between States, by treaties of alliance, embassies, negotia- 
tions, and guarantees ; and the more general combination of powers 
in the wars that arose out of the ambition of some princes, and tho 
attempts of others to preserve the political equilibrium. 

2. The inordinate growth of the power of the house of Austria, 
in the early part of the sixteenth century, first developed the de- 
fensive and conservative system to which we have alluded ; and for 
a long time the principal object of all the wars and alliances of 
Europe was to humble the ambition of some one nation, whose pre- 
ponderance seemed to threaten the liberty and independence of the 
rest. 

3. It has been stated that the marriage of Maximilian of Austria, 
with Mary of Bur' gundy, secured to the house of Austria the whole 
of Bur' gundy, and the " Low Countries," corresponding to the 
modern Netherlands. In the year 1506, Charles, known in history 
a^ Charles V., a grandson of Maximilian and Mary of Austria, and 
also of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, inherited the Low Countries : 
on the death of Ferdinand, in 1516, he became heir to the whole 
Spanish succession, which comprehended Spain, Naples, Sicily, and 



^1 MODERN IIISTOllY. [Part IL 

Sardinia, together with Spanish America. To these vast possessions 
were added his patrimonial dominions in Austria; and in 1519 the 
imperial dignity of the Germanic empire was conferred upon him by 
the choice of the electors, when he was only in his nineteenth year. 

4. Charles soon resigned to his brotlier Ferdinand his hereditary 
Austrian States ; but the two brothers, acting in concert for the ad- 
vancement of their reciprocal interests, were regarded but as one 
power by the alarmed sovereigns of Europe, who began to suspect 
that the Austrian princes aimed at universal monarchy ; and their 
jealousy was increased when Ferdinand, by marriage, secured the ad- 
dition of Hungary and Bohemia to his dominions ; and, at a later 
period, Charles, in a similar manner, obtained for his son, afterwards 
Philip II. of Spain, the future sovereignty of Portugal. 

5. When the imperial throne of Germany became vacant by the 

death of Maximilian, Francis I. of France and Charles 

VALRY BE- ^' ^^^^ competitors for the crown ; and on the success 

TWEEN FRAN- of thc lattcr, the mutual claims of the two princes 

CIS I. AND Q^^ g^^j^ other's dominions, especially in Italy and the 

CHARLES y. ^ 1 7 1 • 

Low Countries, soon made them declared enemies. 

France then took the lead in attempting to regulate the balance of 

m. HENRY pow^^i' against the house of Austria ; and the favor of 

VIII. OF Henry VIII. of England was courted by the rival mon- 

ENGLAND. j^j-^jj^g^ ^g ^j^g priucc uiost llkcly to secure the victory to 

whomsoever he should give the weight of his influence. 

6. In year 1509 Henry VIII., then at the age of eighteen, had 
succeeded his father Henry VII. on the throne of England, — re- 
ceiving at the same time a rich treasury and a flourishing kingdom, 
and uniting in his person the opposing claims of the houses of York 
and Lancaster. The real power of the English monarch was at this 
time greater than at any previous period ; and Henry VIII. might 
have been the arbiter of Europe, in the rivalries and wars between 
Francis I. and Charles V., had not his actions been the result of 
passion, vanity, caprice, or resentment, rather than of enlightened 
policy. 

7. Each of the rival princes sedulously endeavored to enlist the 
English monarch in his favor : both gave a pension to his prime 
minister, cardinal Wolsey ; and each had an interview with the 
king — Francis meeting him at Calais, and Charles visiting him in 
England, — but the latter won Henry through the influence of Wol- 
sey, whose egregrious vanity he duped by encouraging his hopes of 



Ohap. ITI] . SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 327 

promotion to the papal crown. Moreover, Henry was, at the begin- 
ning, ill-di,^osed towards the king of France, who virtually governed 
Scotland through the influence of the regent Albany ; and, by an 
alliance witii Charles, he hoped to recover a part of those domains 
v\'hich his ancestors had formerly possessed in France. Charles also 
gained the aid of the pope, Leo X. ; but, on the other hand, Francis 
was supported by the Swiss, the Genoese, and the Venetians. 

8. In the year 1520 Francis seized the opportunity of an insur- 
rection in Spain to attempt the recovery of Navarre, which had been 
imited to the French crown by marriage alliance in 1490, and con- 
quered by Ferdinand of Spain in 1512. Navarre was won and lost 
in the course of a few months, and the war was then transferred to 
Italy. In two successive years the French governor of Milan was 
driven from Lombardy : the Duke of Bourbon,^ constable of France, 
the best general of Francis, who had received repeated affronts from 
the king, his master, deserted to Charles, and was by him invested 
with the chief command of his forces; and in the year 1525 Francis 
himself was defeated by his rebellious subject in the battle of Pavia, 
and taken prisoner, but not until his horse had been killed under 
him, and his armor, which is still preserved, had been indented by 
numerous bullets and lances. In the battle of Pavia the Frencli 
army was almost totally destroyed. In a single line Francis con- 
veyed the sad intelligence to his mother. " Madam all is lost but 
honor." 

9. Francis was conveyed a prisoner to Madrid ; and it was only 
at the expiration of a year that he obtained his release, when a fever, 
occasioned by despondency, had already threatened to put an end, 
at once, to his life, and the advantages which Charles hoped to de- 
rive from his captivity. Francis had already prepared to abdicate 
the throne in favor of his son the dauphin, when Charles decided to 

1. The house of Bourbon derives its name from the small village of Bourbon in the former 
province of Bourbonnais, now in the department of AUier, thirteen miles west from Moulins, 
and one hundred and sixty-five miles south from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) In early times this 
town had lords of its own, who bore the title of barons. Aimer, who lived in the early part 
Zi the tenth century, is the first of these barons of wiiom history gives any account. The male 
liiinces of this line having become extinct, Beatrix, duchess of Bourbon, married Robert, 
second son of St. Louis ; and their son Louis, duke of Bourbon, who died in 1.341, became the 
founder of the house of Bourbon. Two branches of this house took their origin from the two 
sons of Louis. The elder line became extinct at the death of the constable of Bourbou, who 
defeated Francis at Pavia, and was himself killed in 1527, in the assault of the city of Rome. 
From the other line have sprung several branches,— first, the royal branch, and that of Cond6 ; 
since v^diich the former has undergone several subdivisions, giving sovereigns to Frame, to 
Spain, the two Sicilies, and Lucca and Parma. 



328 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

release the captive monarch, after exacting from him a stipulation to 
surrender Bur' gundy, to renounce his pretensions to Miltin and Na- 
ples, and to ally himself, by marriage, with the family of his enemy. 
But Francis, before his release, had secretly protested, in the pres- 
ence of his chancellor, against the validity of a treaty extorted from 
him while a prisoner ; and, once at liberty, it Avas not difficult for 
him to elude it. His joy at his release was unbounded. Being es- 
corted to the frontiers of France, and having passed a small stream 
that divides the two kingdoms, he mounted a Turkish horse, and 
putting him at full speed, and waving his hand over his head, ex- 
claimed aloud, several times, "I am yet a king !" (March 18, 1526.) 

10. The liberation of Francis was the signal for a general league 
against Charles V. The Italian States, which, since the battle of 
Pavia, had been in the power of the Spanish and Grerman armies, 
now regarded the French as liberators ; the pope put himself at the 
head of the league ; the Swiss joined it ; and Henry YIII., alarmed 
at the increasing power of Charles, entered into a treaty with Francis, 
so that the very reverses of the French monarch, by exciting the 
jealousy of other States against his rival, rendered him much stronger 
in alliances than before. 

11. During these events, the rebel Duke of Bourbon remained in 
Italy, quartering his mercenary troops on the unfortunate inhabit- 
ants of Milan ; but when the Italians declared against the emperor, 
all Italy was delivered up to pillage. To obtain the greater plunder, 
Bourbon marched upon Rome, followed not only by his own soldiers, 
but by an additional force of fourteen thousand brigands from Ger- 
many. Pope Clement, terrified by the greatness of the danger which 
menaced the States of the Holy See, discharged his best troops, and 
shut himself up in the castle of St. Angelo. Rome was attacked, 
and carried by storm, although Bourbon fell in the assault ; the pil- 
lage was universal, neither convents nor churches being spared ; 
from seven to eight thousand Romans were massacred the first day ; 
and not all the ravages of the Goths and Huns surpassed those of 
the army of the first prince in Christendom. 

12. The pillage of Rome, and the captivity of the pope, excited 
great indignation throughout Europe ; and the hypocritical Charles, 
instead of sending orders for his liberation, ordered prayers for his 
deliverance to be ofi"ered in all the Spanish churches. At this fa- 
vorable moment Francis sent an army into Italy, which penetrated 
to the very walls of Naples ; but here his prosperity ended ; and the 



Chat flL] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 3^9 

impolicy of the French king, in disgusting and alienating his most 
faithful allies, lost for him all the advantages which he had gained. 
Both the rival monarchs now desired peace, but both strove to dis- 
semble their real sentiments : although Charles had been generally 
fortunate in the contest, yet all his revenues were expended ; and 
he desired a respite from the cares of war to enable him to crush 
the Reformation, which had already made considerable progress in 
his German dominions. A peace was therefore concluded at Cam- 
bray, in August 1529, which was as glorious to Charles as it was dis- 
graceful to France and her monarch. The former remained supreme 
master of Italy ; the pope submitted ; the Venetians were shorn of 
their conquests ; and Henry VIII. reaped nothing but the emperor's 
enmity for his interference. 

13. The conduct of Henry VIII. in his domestic relations reflects 
disgrace upon his name, and is a dark stain upon his character. He 
was first married to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand 
and Isabella of Spain, and aunt of Charles V. of Germany, a woman 
much older than himself, but who acquired and retained an ascend- 
ancy over his affections for nearly twenty years. For divorcing her, 
and marrying Anne Boleyn, he was excommunicated by the pope, — a 
measure which induced him, to break of all allegiance to the Holy 
See, and declare himself supreme head of the English church. Three 
years after his second marriage, a new passion for Jane Seymour, one 
of the queen's maids of honor, effaced from his memory all the vir- 
tues and graces of Anne Boleyn ; and seventeen days saw the latter 
pass from the throne to the scaffold. The marriage ceremony with 
the lady Jane was performed on the day following the execution. 
Her death followed, in little more than a year. In 1540 Henry 
married Anne of Cleves, on the recommendation of his minister 
Cromwell ; but his dislike to his new wife hastened the fall of that 
minister, who was unjustly condemned and executed on a charge of 
treason. Soon after, Henry procured a divorce from Anne, and 
married Catherine Howard, niece of the duke of Norfolk ; but on a 
charge of dissolute conduct Catherine was brought to the scaffold. 
In 1543 the king married Catherine Parr, who alone, of all his wives, 
survived him ; and even she, before the king's death, came near being 
brought to the block on a charge of heresy. 

14. Soon after the accession of Henry, the celebrated Wolsey ap- 
peared on the theatre of English politics. Successfully courting the 
favor of the monarch, he soon obtained the first place in the royal 



330 MODERN HISTORY. [Paut II 

favor, and became uncontrolled minister. Numerous ecclesiastical 
dignities were conferred upon him : in 1518, the pope, to ingratiate 
himself with Henry, created Wolsey cardinal. Courted by the em- 
perors of France and Germany, he received pensions from both ; 
and ere 4ong his revenues nearly ecpalled those of the crown, part 
of which he expended in pomp and ostentation, and part in laudable 
munificence for the advancement of learning. When Henry, seized 
with a passion for Anne Boleyn, one of the queen's maids of honor, 
formed the design of getting rid of Catherine, and of making the 
new favorite his wife, Wolsey was suspected of abetting the delays 
of the court of Rome, which had been appealed to by Henry for a 
divorce. The displeasure of the king was excited against his minis- 
ter ; and, in the course of three yoars, Wolsey, repeatedly accused 
of treason, and gradually stripped of all his possessions, died of a 
broken heart. (1530.) In his last moments he is said to have ex- 
claimed, in the bitterness of humiliation and remorse, " Had I but 
served my God as diligently as I have served my king, he would not 
have given me over in my gray hairs. "^ 

a. The following soliloquy is put by Shakspeare into the mouth of the humbled favorite oa 
the occasion of his surrendering to Henry the great seal,— and also his dying advice to his at- 
tendant Cromwell: 

" Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 

This is the state of man ; To-day he puts forth 

The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms 

And bears his blushing honors thick upon him : 

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 

And,— when he thinks, good easy man, full sively 

His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 

And then he falls, as I do. I have venlur'd 

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 

This majiy summers in a sea of glory ; 

But far beyond my depth ; my high-blown pride 

At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 

Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 

Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye ; 

I feel my heart new open'd : O, how wretched 

Is that poor man, that hangs on princes favors ! 

There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, 

That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 

iMore pangs and fears than wars or women have ; 

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 

Never to hope again." 

" Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition ; 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't? 
Love thyself last ; clicrish those hearts that hate thee ; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty : 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 331 

15. During the stirring and eventful period of the early rivalries 
of Francis I. and Charles V. — a period full of great 
events, of conquests and reverses, all arising out of the * \^ / 

' i- ? O FORMATION. 

selfish views of individual monarchs, but none of them 
causing any lasting change or progress in human affairs, the great 
principle of religious freedom began to agitate all classes, and to 
give fresh life to the public mind in Europe. At this time the 
pope, as the head of the Catholic religion, assumed to himself both 
spiritual and temporal power over all the kingdoms of the world : 
often, amidst the blackest crimes, and immersed in the grossest sensu- 
alities, he avowed, and his adherents proclaimed, the doctrine of his 
infallibility^ or " entire exemption from liability to err ;" and al- 
though bold men in every age had protested against papal pretensions, 
yet the great mass of the people, the clergy, the nobility, and the 
monarchs, still regarded the pope as supreme and infallible authority 
over the thoughts and the actions of men. The memory and opin- 
ions of Wickliffe^ the reformer had been solemnly condemned by the 
council of Constance* thirty years after his death : John Huss, and 

1. Wickliffe, born in England about the year 1324— called the "morning star of the Reforma- 
lion" — was an eminent divine and ecclesiastical reformer. He vigorously attacked papal 
usurpation, and the abuses of the church. The pojje insisted on his being brought to trial as a 
heretic ; but he was effectually protected by his patron, the duke of Lancaster. He died in 1384. 

2. Constance^ a city highly interesthig from its historical associations, is situated on the river 
Rhine, at the point where the river unites the upper part of the Lake of Constance with the 
lower. Though mostly within the natural limits of Switzerland, the city belongs to the grand 
duchy of Baden. {Maps Nos. XIV. and XVIL) 

The great object of the celebrated Council of Constance, which continued in session from 
1414 to 1418, was to remove the divisions in the church, settle controversies, and vindicate the 
authority of general councils, to which the Roman pontiff was declared to be amenable. 
When, in 1411, Sigismund ascended the throne of Germany, there were three popes, each of 
whom had anathematized the two others. To put an end to these disorders, and stop the in- 
fluence of John Huss, a native of Bohemia, who had adopted and zealously propagated the 
doctrines of Wickliffe, Sigismund summoned a general council. The pretended heresies ot 
Wickliffe and Huss were condemned ; and the latter, notwithstanding the assurances of safety 
gfven him by the German emperor, was burnt at the stake, July 6lh, 1415. His friend and 
companion, Jerome of Prague, met with the same fate, May 30th, 1416. After the ecclesiasti- 
cal dignitaries supposed they had sufficiently checked the progress of heresies by these execu- 



Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. 

To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not : 

Let all the ends thou aimst at, be thy country's, 

Thy God's, and truth's ; then if thou fall's!, O Cronwell 

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr." ■ 

" O Cromwell, Cromwell, 
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies." 

Shakspeare's Henry VIIL, Act IH., Scene II. 



332 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

Jerome of Prague, with a host of less celebrated martyrs, had been 
publicly burned for professing heretical opinions ; and the creed of 
the unfortunate Albigenses* had been extinguished in blood. Yet 
as civilization advanced, the moral power and authority of the popes 
declined ; and the spirit of religious inquiry daily grew more rife : the 
pope was less popular in his own dominions than at a distance ; and 
while the imperial city was sacked by the haughty Bourbon, and the 
pope himself was held a prisoner by a tumultuous soldiery, his emis- 
saries were collecting tribute in the German dominions, and along 
the shores of the Baltic. The avarice of the pope, Leo X., was 
equal to the credulity of tlie Germans ; and billets of salvation, or 
indulgencies professing to remit the punishment due to sins, even 
before the commission of the contemplated crime, were sold by thou- 
sands among the German peasantry. Martin Luther, a man of high 
reputation for sanctity and learning, and then professor of theology 
at Wittemberg" on the Elbe, first called in question the efficacy of 



tions, they proceeded to depose the three popes, or anli-pnpes, John XXIII., Gregory XII., and 
Benedict XIII. They next elected Jlarthi V., and thus put an end to a schism that had lasted 
forty years. 

Travellers are still shown the hall where the council assembled ; the chairs on which sat the 
emperor and the pope ; the liouse in which Hiiss was apprehended ; his dungeon in the Do- 
inican monastery; and, in the nave of the cathedral, a brazen plate let in!o the floor on the 
spot where the venerable martyr lisleiied to his sentence of death ; also the place, in a garden, 
where he was burnt. 

The decrees and excommunications of the council were despised in Bohemia ; and in a 
bloody war of seventeen years' duration the Bohemian adherents of Huss took terrible ven- 
geance upon the emperor, the empire, and the clergy, for his deaih — a revenge which the gentle 
and pious mind of Huss would never have approved. After the close of this war, the religious 
freedom of the Hussites continually sutfcred more and more; and the stricter sect of the di- 
minished band was finally merged in the fraternity of Bpheniian and Moravian brethren, which 
arose in 1457, and, under the most violent persecutions, exhibited an honorable steadfastness 
of faith, and the most exemplary purity. 

1. Mbigenses is a name given to several heretical sects in the south of France, who agreed 
in opposing the dominion of the Roman hierarchy, and in endeavoring to restore the sim- 
plicity of primitive Christianity. In I20i) they were first attaciced, in a cruel and desolating 
war, by the army of the cross, called together by pope Lmocent III.— the first v/ar which the 
church waged against heretics within her own dominions. In 1229 I.ouis VIII. of France fell 
in a campaign against the heretics. It is said that hundreds of thousands fell, on both sides, 
in this war; but the Albigenses were subdued, and the inquisition was called in to extirpate 
any remaining germs of heresy. The name of the Albigenses disappeared about the middle 
of the thirteenth century; but fugitives of their party formed, in the mountains of Piedmont 
and Lombardy, what is ctiiled the Freacli Church, which was continued to the times of th.e 
Hussites and the Reformation. 

2. TVittemberg; a town of Pfussian Saxony, on the Elbe, is fifty miles south-west from Herlin. 
(Map No. XVII.) It derives its chief interest from its having been the cradle of the Reforma- 
tion,— Luther and Melancthon having both been professors in its university, and their remains 
being deposited in its cathedral. A noble bronze statue of the great reformer was erected in 
the market-place in 1821. " It represents, in colossal proportions, the full-length figure of 
Luther, supporting in his left hand the Bible, kept open by the right, pointing to a passage in 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 333 

these indulgences ; and his word, like a talisman, broke the spell of 
Romish supremacy. 

16. In 1517 Luther first read in public his famous theses, or 
propositions, in which he bitterly inveighed against the trafiic in in- 
dulgences, and challenged all the learned men of the day to contest 
them with him in a public disputation. Luther did not at once form 
the resolution to separate from the Romish Church ; but the pressure 
of circumstances, and the warmth of controversy with his adversa- 
ries, impelled him from one step to another ; and as he enlarged his 
observation and reading, and discovered new abuses and errors, he 
began to entertain doubts of the pope's divine authority — rejected 
the doctrine of his infallibility — gradually abolished the practice of 
mass, auricular confession, and the worship of images — denied the 
doctrine of purgatory, and opposed the fastings of the Romish 
Church, monastic vows, and the celibacy of the clergy. In 1520 the 
pope declared the writings of Luther heretical ; and Luther in re- 
turn solemnly burned, on the public square of Wittemberg, the pa- 
pal bull of condemnation, and the volumes of the canon law of the 
Romish Church. 

17. In 1521 the council of the Sorbonne,' in Paris, under the in- 
fluence of the French monarch, declared, " that flames, and not reason- 
ing, ought to be employed against the arrogance of Luther ;" and 
in the same year the diet of Worms, at which Charles V. himself 
presided, pronounced the imperial ban of excommunication against 
Luther, his adherents, and protectors, condemned his writings to be 
burned, and commanded him to be seized and brought to punish- 
ment. The king of England, Henry VIII., who made pretensions 
to theological learning, wrote a volume against Luther ; and the 
pope was so pleased with this token of Henry's religious zeal, that 
he conferred upon him the title of '■'• defender of the faith ^'' 2iVi ap- 
pellation still retained by the sovereigns of England. 

the inspired volume. The pedestal on which the statue stands is formed of a solid block of 
red polished granite, twenty feet in height, ten feet in width, and eight feet in depth. On each 
of its sides is a central tablet bearing a poetical inscription, the import of the principal being 
that 'if the Reformation be God's work, it is imperishable; if the work of man, it will fall.'" 

1. The Sorbonne, originally a college for the education of secular clergymen at the university 
of Paris, founded about the year 1250, became so famous that its name was extended to the 
whole theological faculty of the imiversity. Tlie kings seldom took any steps afTecting religion 
or the church without having asked the opinion of the Sorbonne, which, inimical both to the 
Jesuits and the Reformation, steadfastly maintained the liberties of the Gallican church. But 
the Sorbonne outlived its fame : its spirit often degenerated into blind zeal and pedantic obsti- 
nacy : its condemnation of the writings of Helvetius, Rousseau, and JIarmontel, subjected it to 
much derision ; and the Revolution of 1789 put an end to its existence. 



384 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

18 But notwithstanding this opposition from high quarters, the 
age was rife for changes : the art of printing rapidly spread the 
tenets of the reformers ; and many of the Germaji princes espoused 
the cause of Luther, and gave him protection. But Charles V., 
after the peace of Cambray, had determined to arrest the farther 
progress of the Reformation ; and for this purpose he proceeded to 
Germany, where he assembled a diet of the empire at Spires,^ March 
1529; and here the majority of the States, which were Catholic, 
decreed that the edicts of the diet of Worms should be retained, 
and that all those who had been gained over to the new doctrine 
should abstain from farther innovations. The reformers, including 
nearly half the German j)rinces, entered a violent ]p^'otest against 
these proceedings, on which account they were distinguished as 
PnoTESTANTS, — an appellation since applied indiscriminately to all 
the sects, of whatever denomination, that have withdrawn from the 
Romish church. 

19. In the year 1530 Charles assembled another diet of the em- 
pire at Ausburg,^ to try the great cause of the Reformation, hoping 
to be able to effect a reconcilation between the opposing parties, al- 
though he was urged by the pope to have recourse at once to the most 
rigorous measures against the stubborn enemies of the Catholic faith. 
The learned and peaceable Melancthon presented to the diet the ar- 
ticles of the Lutheran creed, since known by the name of the con- 
fession of Augsburg; but no reconciliation of opposing opinions 
could be effected ; and the Protestants were commanded to renounce 
their errors, upon pain of being put under the ban of the empire. 
Charles was preparing to employ violence, when the Protestant 
princes of Germany concluded a defensive league, (Dec. 1530), and 
having obtained promises of aid from the kings of France, England, 
and Denmark, held themselves ready for combat. At this time 
Henry YIII., although abhorring all connection with the Lutherans, 
was fast approaching a rupture with the pope, who stood in the way 
of the king's contemplated divorce from his first wife Catherine, and 

1. spires^ one of the most ancient cities of Germany, 13 in Rhenish Bavaria, on the west 
bank of the Rhine, twenty-two miles south of Worms. There may still be seen at Spires the 
outer walls of an old palace in which no fev/er than forty-nine diets have been held, the most 
celebrated Df which was that of 1529. In the celebrated cathedral of Spires nine German em- 
perors, and many other celebrated personages, have been buried. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Jiugsburg is a city of Bavaria, between, and near the confluence of, the rivers Wertacli 
and Lech, branches of the Danube, thirty-five miles northwest from JMimich. Augsburg is 
very ancient, Augustus having settled a colony in it about twelve years B. C, and named it 
^lugusia Vindclicorun {Mcp No. XVIl.) 



Chap. III.] SIXTEENTH CENTtJRY. 335 

his marriage with the afterwards unfortunate Anne Boleyn ; and 
Francis, although he burned heretics in France, did not hesitate to 
league himself with the reformers of Germany, in order to weaken 
the power of his rival. 

20. In addition to these obstacles to the purpose of Charles, at 
this moment the Turkish sultan, Solyman the Magnificent, invaded 
Hungary, at the head of three hundred thousand men ; and Charles, 
fearing the consequences of a religious war at this juncture, hastened 
to offer to the Protestants all the toleration they demanded, until 
the next diet. After the Turks had been defeated, and driven back 
upon their own territories, Charles thought it his duty, as the great- 
est monarch, and the protector of entire Christendom, to make a 
crusade against the piratical Moors of Northern Africa, who, under 
their leader Barbarossa, held Tunis and Algiers,' and were in close 
alliance with the Turkish sultan. In the summer of 1535 he landed 
at Tunis at the head of thirty thousand men, defeated the Moors in 
battle, and, to his inexpressible joy, was enabled to set at liberty 
twenty-two thousand Christian captives, whom the Moors had re- 
duced to slavery. On his return from this expedition he found the 
king of France preparing for war against him ; and the hostilities 
which immediately broke out between the rival monarchs delayed the 
decisive rupture between the Catholics and Protestants of Grermany 
for a period of twelve years. In the summer of 1535 Francis in- 
vaded Savoy,^ and threatened Milan ; and in the following year 

1. Algiers, or Algeria, a country of northern Africa, having the city Algiers for its capital, 
comprises the JVuviidia proper of the ancients. It formed part of the Roman empire ; but 
during the reign of Valentinian III., count Boniface, the governor of Africa, revolted, and 
called in the Vandals to his assistance. The lalter having taken possession of the country, held 
it till they were expelled by Belisarius, A. D. 534, who restored Africa to the Eastern empire. 
It was overran and conquered by the Saracens in the seventh century : in the early part of the 
sixteenth century Ferdinand of Spain wrested several provinces from them ; but ere long the 
Spanish yoke was thrown off by the famous Corsairs known in history as Barbarossa I. and 
II. Algiers then became the centre of the new empire founded by the Barbarossas, and for a 
long period carried on almost incessant hostilities against the powers of Christendom, capturing 
their ships, and reducing their subjects to slavery. Attempts were made at different times to 
abate this nuisance. In 1541, Charles V., six years after his expedition against Tunis, attacked 
Algiers; but his fleet having been nearly destroyed by a storm, he was compelled to return, 
with great loss. Both France and England repeatedly chastised the insolence of the Algerines, 
by bombarding their city ; but in general the European powers purchased exemption from the 
attacks of Algerine cruisers by paying tribute to the dey. In 1815 the Americans compelled 
the dey to renounce all tribute from them, and pay sixty thousand dollars as indemnification 
for their losses ; and in the following year the English bombarded Algiers, destroyed the Al- 
gerine fleet, in the harbor, and compelled the dey to set all his Christian slaves at liberty, and 
engage to cease his piracies. Finally, in 1830, a war arose between France and Algiers, which 
has resulted in the reduction of the latter to a province of the French empire. 

2. Savoij, now included in the kingdom of Sardinia, is in north-western Italy, south of the 



336 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

Charles V. entered the south of France with a large force ; but the 
French marshal, Montmorency, who commanded there, acting the 
part of the Roman Fabius, avoided a general battle, laid waste the 
country, and finally compelled the emperor to, retreat in disgrace, 
with the wreck of a ruined army. 

21. In 1538 the rival monarchs, having exhausted all their pecu- 
niary resources, concluded, at Nice,^ a truce of ten years, through 
the mediation of the pope ; but in 1542 war was again renewed, — 
the king of Scotland and the sultan of Turkey, together with the 
Protestant princes of Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, uniting with 
France, and the king of England taking part with the emperor 
Charles V. In vain Francis and Solyman, uniting their fleets, bom- 
barded the castle of Nice ; and the odious spectacle of the crescent 
and the cross united, alienated all the Christian world from the king 
of France. (1543.) The French, however, gained the brilliant vic- 
tory of Cerisoles'' against the allies, (April 1544,) but Henry VIII., 
crossing over to France, captured Boulogne.^ (Sept. 1544.) Already 
Charles had penetrated within thirteen leagues of Paris, when he 
formed a separate treaty with Francis, at Cressy. A short time later 
a peace was proclaimed between Francis and Henry, both of whom 
died in the same year, 1547. 

22. At the time of the death of the king of France and the king 
of England, Charles V. was engaged in a war with his Protestant 
German subjects, having now determined, in concert with the pope, 
to adopt decisive measures for putting down the Reformation in his 
dominions. At the commencement of the war, the Protestant Ger- 
man States, although abandoned by France, Denmark, and England, 
leagued together for the common defence ; but Maurice of Saxony, 
one of the leading Protestant princes, deserted to the emperor, and 
the isolated members of the league were soon overthrown. The rule 
of Charles now became highly tyrannical ; and Catholics and Prot- 
estants equally declaimed against him. At length Maurice, to whom 
Charles was chiefly indebted for his recent victories, being secretly 

Lake of Geneva, and bordering on France and Switzerland. {Map No. XIII.) Savoy was 
under the Roman dominion till the year 400: it belonged to Bur' gundy till 530, to France till 
B79, to Aries till 1000, vs'hen it had its own counts, and, in 1416, was erected into a duchy. 
In 1792 it became a part of France, and in 1814 and 1815 was ceded to Sardinia. {Maps 
No9. XIV. and XVII.) 

1. JVicc is a seaport of north-western Italy, ninety-five miles south-west from Genoa. {Map 
No. xni.) 

2. Cerisoles is a small village of Piedmont, near Carignan, in north-western Italy. 

3. Boviogne is a seaport town of France on the English Channel, near the Siraits of Dover, 
twenty miles south-west from Calais. {Map No. XIII.) 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 337 

dissatisfied with the conduct of the emperor, formed a bold plan for 
establishing religious freedom, and German liberties, but concealed 
his projects until the most favorable moment for putting them into 
execution. Having concluded a secret treaty with Henry II. of 
France, the son and successor of Francis, in 1552 he suddenly pro- 
claimed war against the emperor, issuing at the same time a mani- 
festo of grievances. 

23. Charles, taken completely by surprise, narrowly escaped being 
made prisoner ; and after having had the mortification of seeing all 
his projects overthrown by the man whom he had most trusted, he 
was compelled to sign the convention of Passau' with the Protest- 
ants. Three years later, the bad success of the war M'hich he car- 
ried on against France changed this convention into the definite 
peace of Augsburg, (Sept. 1555,) by which the free exercise of re- 
ligion was secured to the Protestants throughout Grermany, although 
neither party was allowed to seek proselytes at the expense of the 
other. Such was the first victory of religious liberty under the 
banner of the Reformation. The spirit that had been awakened, 
pursued, from this time, a determined course, and all the efforts of 
princes were not able to arrest its progress. 

24. The treaty of Augsburg was to Charles V. the hand-writing 
on the wall which showed him that the end of the mighty power 
which he had wielded was fast approaching. So offended was the 
pope at the sanction which Charles had given to the principles of 
religious toleration, that he became the avowed enemy of the house 
of Austria, and entered into a close alliance with the 

young king of France. Charles saw, from afar, the tioxandre- 
storm that was approaching, and,, abandoned as he was tirement ok 
by fortune, afflicted by disease, and opposed in his de- 
clining years by a rival in the full vigor of life, he wisely resolved 
not to forfeit his fame by vainly struggling to retain a power which 
he was no longer able to wield ; and, in imitation of Diocletian, to 
the surprise of the world he abdicated his throne, and having re- 
signed his German empire to his brother Ferdinand, and his king- 
doms of Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy, to his son Philip, he re- 
tired to end his days in the solitude of the monastery of St. Just.^ 

1. Passau is a fortified frontier city of eastern Bavaria, on the southern bank of the Danube. 
It derives its chief historical importance from the treaty concluded there in J 552. (Map No. 
XVII.) 

2. The monastery of St. Just is in the province of Estreniadura in Spain, near the to\yn of 
Plasencia, about one himdred and twenty miles south-west from Madrid. (J)Iap No. XIlI.j 



338 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

25. Tlie ex-emperor divided tlie hours of his retirement between 
pious meditation and mechanical inventions, taking little interest in 
the affairs of the world around him. It is related of him that, for 
amusement, he once endeavored to make two watches go exactly 
alike. Several times he thought he had succeeded ; but all in vain — 
the one went too fast, the other too slow. At length he exclaimed ! 

' Behold, not even two watches can I bring to agree with each other; 
and yet, fool that I was, I thought that I should be able to govern, 
like the works of a watch, so many nations all living under different 
skies, in different climes, and speaking different languages." Finally, 
.shortly before his death, he caused a solemn rehearsal to be made 
of his own funeral obsecjuies — a too faithful picture of that eclipsed 
glory which he had survived. He died in the year 1558, being at 
the time in the fifty-sixth year of his age. 

26. During the reign of Charles V., England, Sweden, and Den- 
mark, had followed the example of Germany in separating from the 
church of Rome. The Keformation in England, however, was, at 
this early period, a political rather than a moral and religious change, 
accomplished by the king and the aristocracy with little regard to the 
dictates of conscience or the convictions of reason, and retaining in 
part the Catholic hierarchy. By a decree of parliament (1534) the 
jdng was acknowledged as the protector and supreme head of the 
Church of England ; the monasteries were suppressed, and their 
property, amounting to more than a million of dollars, was given to 
the crown. Nothing would induce the king to renounce the title, 
which he had received from the pope, of " defender of the faith;" 
and, with equal intolerance, he persecuted both Catholics and Pro- 
testants, — the former for having denied his supremacy, and the latter 
as heretics. But while Henry YIIT. merely withdrew his kingdom 
from the authority of the pope, the true principles of the Reforma- 
tion were spreading among the people. The government of Henry 

administered with numerous violations, both of the chartered 



was 



privileges of Englishmen, and of those still more sacred rights 
which national law has established ; and yet we meet, in cotemporary 
authorities, with no expressions of abhorrence at his tyranny ; but 
the monarch is often mentioned, after his death, in language of eulogy. 
Although lie had few qualities that deserve esteem, he had many 
which a nation is pleased to behold in a sovereign. 

27. On the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, and the accession 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEETs^TH CENTURY. 339 

of his son Edward ^ VT., then in the tenth year of his age, the 
Protestant religion prevailed in England ; bnt this amiable prince 
died at the early age of fifteen ; and after a rash attempt of a 
few of the nobility to seat Lady Jane Grey, niece to Henry VIII.j 
on the throne, the sceptre passed to the hands of Edward's sister 
Mary,b (1553) called the "Bloody Mary," an intolerant Catholic 
and cruel persecutor of the Protestants. In her reign, of only five 
years' duration, more than eight hundred miserable victims were 
burnt at the stake, — martyrs to their religious opinions. Mary mar- 
ried Philip II. of Spain, the son and successor of Charles V., who 
induced her in 1557 to unite with him in the war against France. 
Among the events of this war, the most remarkable are the victory 
of St. Quentin,^ gained by the Spaniards, and the conquest of Calais 
by the French, under the duke of Guise, the last possession of the 
English in France. (1558.) In the same year occurred the death 
of Mary, about a month later than the death of Charles V. Mary 
was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, 
under whose reign the Protestant religion became firmly established 
in England. 

III. The Age of Elizabeth. — 1. As the marriage of Henry 
VIII. with Anne Boleyn had not been sanctioned by the Bomish 
Church, the claims of Elizabeth were not recognized by the Catholic 
States of Europe ; and, the youthful Mary, queen of 
Scotland, the niece of Henry VIII., who was the next jJ^otland. 
heir to the crown if the illegitimacy of Elizabeth could 
be established, was regarded by them as the rightful claimant of the 
throne. Mary, who had been educated in France, in the Catholic 
faith, and had been married when very young to the dauphin, was 
persuaded by the king of France, and her maternal uncles, the 
Guises, to assume the arms and title of queen of England ; a false 
step which laid the foundation of all her subsequent misfortunes. 

2. Elizabeth endeavored to promote Protestant principles, as the 

1. St. Quentin, formerly a place of great strength, is a town of France, in the former province 
of Picardy, eighty miles north-east from Paris. On the 10th of August, 1557, the army of 
Pliilip II., commanded by the duke of Savoy, engaged the French, commanded by the consta- 
ble Montniorenci, near this town, when the French were totally defeated, with the loss of all 
their artillery and baggage, and about seven thousand men killed and prisoners. The town, 
defended by the famous admiral Coligni, soon afterwards fell into the hands of the Spaniards. 
(Map No. XIII.) 

a. Son of Henry Vfll. and Jane Seymour. 

b. Daughter of Henry's first wife Catherine. 



340 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet U 

best safeguard of her throne ; and in the year 1559 the parliament 
formally abolished the papal supremacy, and established the Church 
of England in its present form. On the other side Philip II. was 
the champion of the Catholics ; and hence England now became the 
counterpoise to Spain, as France had been during the reign of 
Charles V., while the ancient rivalry between France and Spain pre 
vented these Catholic powers from cordially uniting to check the 
progress of the Reformation. 

3. On the death of Henry II. of France, by a mortal wound re- 
ceived at a tournament, (1559) the feeble Francis II., the husband 
of Mary of Scotland, ascended the throne, but died the following 
year, (Dec. 1560,) and was succeeded by his brother Charles IX., 
then at the age of only ten years. Mary then left France for her 
native dominions ; but she found there the Romish church over- 
thrown, and Protestantism erected in its stead. The marriage of 
the queen to the young Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in spite of the 
remonstrances of Elizabeth, led to the first open breach between 
Mary and her Protestant subjects. Darnley, jealous of the ascend- 
ancy which an Italian, David Rizzio, Mary's private secretary, had 
acquired over her, headed a band of conspirators who murdered the 
favorite before the eyes of the queen. Soon after, the house which 
Darnley inhabited was blown up by powder ; Darnley was buried un- 
der its ruins ; and three months later Mary married the earl of Both- 
well, the principal author of the crime. An insurrection of the Pro- 
testant lords followed these proceedings ; Mary was forced to dismiss 
Bothwell, and resign the crown to her infant son James VI., but 
subsequently endeavoring to resume her authority, and being defeat- 
ed by the regent Murray, her own brother, she fled into England, 
and threw herself upon the protection of Elizabeth, her deadly enemy. 
(1568.) Elizabeth retained the unfortunate Mary a prisoner, gave 
the guardianship of her young son to whom she pleased, and, through 
her influence over the Protestant nobility of Scotland, was enabled 
to govern that country mostly at her will. 

4. During these events in Scotland Elizabeth was carrying on a 
secret war against the attempts of Philip II. to establish the inqui- 
sition in the Netherlands, and also against a similar design of the 
Catholic party in France, which ruled that country during the mi- 
nority of the sovereign. In both these countries the attempts of the 
Catholic rulers provoked a desperate resistance. In France, banish- 
ment or death had become the penalty of heresy, when, in January 



Chap III.] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 34 1 

1562, an edict was issued by the government, through the influence 
of the queen regent, granting tolerance to the Hugue- 
nots, as the French Protestants were called, and allowing religious 
them to assemble for worship outside the walls of towns. war in 
The powerful family of Guises were indignant at 
the countenance thus given to heresy ; and as the duke of Guise 
was passing through a small village, his followers fell upon the Pro- 
testants who were assembled outside the walls in prayer, and killed 
sixty of their number. This atrocity was the signal for a general 
rising ; the prince of Conde, the leader of the Protestant party, took 
possession ^f Orleans, and made that town the head-quarters of the 
Huguenots, as the capital was of the Catholics, while at the same 
time the aid of Philip of Spain was openly proffered to the Guises, 
and Conde concluded a treaty with Elizabeth, to whom he delivered 
Havre-de-Grace^ in return for a corps of six thousand men. 

5. At the opening of this civil and religious war, the greatest en- 
thusiasm prevailed on both sides, — in the opposing armies prayers 
were heard in common, morning and evening, — there was no gam- 
bling, no profane language, nor dissipation ; but, under an exterior 
of sanctity, feelings of the most vindictive hate were nourished, and 
the direst cruelties were openly perpetrated in the name of religion. 
The Catholic governor of Guienne'^ went through his province with 
hangmen, marking his route by the victims whom he hung on the 
trees by the road-side. On the other hand, a Protestant baron in 
Dauphiny^ precipitated his prisoners from the top of a tower on 
pikes ; — both parties made retaliatory reprisals, each spilling blood 
upon scaffolds of its own erection. 

6. The first great battle was fought at Dreux,^ the prince of Conde 
commanding the army of the Protestants, and the constable Mont- 
morency that of the Catholics ; but Avhile the latter won the field, each 
of the two generals became prisoner to the opposite party. The 
duke of Guise, who was next in command to Montmorency, treated 

1. Havrc-dc-grace^ now called Havre^ is a fortified town, and the principal commercial sea- 
port, on the western coast of France, at the mouth of the river Seine, one hundred and nine 
miles north-west from Paris. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. The province of Ouienne was in the south-west part of the kingdom, on both sides of tho 
Garonne. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. The province of Dauphiny, of which Grenoble was the capital, was in the south-eastern 
part of France, having Bur' gundy on the north, Italy on the east, Provence on the south, and 
the Rhine on tlie west. (Map No. XIII.) 

4. JDrcux, the ancient seat of the counts of Dreux, is a town of France, forty-flve miles a 
little south of west from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) 



342 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

his captive rival with the utmost generosity : they shared the same 
tent — the same bed ; and while Conde, from the strangeness of his 
position, remained wakeful, Guise, he declared, enjoyed the most pro- 
found sleep. The admiral Coligni succeeded to the command of the 
defeated Huguenots ; and Orleans, their principal post, was only 
saved by the assassination of the duke of Guise, whom a Protestant, 
from behind, wounded by the discharge of a pistol. The capture or 
death of the chiefs on both sides, Coligni excepted, brought about 
an accommodation ; and in March, 1563, the treaty of Amboise' was 
declared, granting to the Protestants full liberty of worship within the 
towns of which they then were in possession, 

7. The treaty of Ambaise was scarcely concluded when its terms 
began to be modified by the court, so that, as a cotemporary writer 
observes, " edicts took more from the Protestants in peace than force 
could take from them in war." The Protestant leaders, Conde and 
Coligni, tried in vain to get possession of the young king ; and a battle 
was fought in the very suburbs of Paris, in which the aged Mont- 
morency was slain. (1567.) A " Lame Peace," ^ concluded in the 
following year, confirmed that of Amboise ; but the wary Protestant 
leaders saw in it only a trap to ensnare them as soon as their army 
should be disbanded. The mask was soon thrown off by an attempt 
of the court to seize the two chiefs : the Huguenots were defeated 
in four battles ; Conde was slain, and Coligni severely wounded ; 
but in 1570 the peace of St. Germain^ was concluded ; and amnesty 
and liberty of worship were again granted to the Protestants. 

8. The object of the court, however, was not peace, but vengeance ; 
and Charles IX., now in his twentieth year, engaged zealously in the 
project of his mother Catherine, to entice the Protestant leaders to 
the capital, and there massacre them, and afterwards carry on a war 
of extermination against the Huguenots throughout the kingdom. 
For the purpose of enticing the Huguenots to the capital, and lulling 
them into security, it was proposed that young Henry of Navarre, a 
Protestant, should espouse the king's sister Margaret, — a marriage 

1. Amhoise is a town and castle ou the Loire, in tlie former province of Touraine, fifteen 
miles east of Tours. The castle occupies the summit of u rock about ninety feet in height. 

{Maji No. XIII.) 

2. St. Germain is a town of France, on a hill near the south bank of the Seine, six miles 
north of Versailles, and nine miles north-west from Paris. It is chiefly noted for its palace, 
originally built by Charles V., and often the residence of the kings of France. James II. of 
England, with most of his family, passed their exile, and died, in it. {Map No. XIII.) 

a. So called as well from its infirm and uncertain nature, as from the accidental lameness of 
its two negotiators. 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 343 

which would, in itself, be a bond of union between the two parties. 
The nuptials were celebrated with the greatest magnificence ; and 
amid the festivities which followed, the plan of the massacre was 
matured. When the decree of extermination was placed before 
Charles for his signature, he at first hesitated, appalled by the enor- 
mity of the deed, but at length signed it, exclaiming, " let none es- 
cape to reproach me." 

9. About three o'clock in the morning of St. Bartholomew's day, 
the 24th of August, 1572, the young duke of Gruise and his band of 
cut-throats commenced the bloody work by breaking into 

the apartment of the aged Coligni, and slaying him while cue of st. 
engaged in prayer ; the tocsin was sounded, and the bauthol- 
Catholics of Paris, with the sign of the cross in their 
caps to distinguish them, rushed forth to the massacre of then* 
brethren. What is surprising, the victims made no resistance ! They 
would not derogate, at such a moment, from their character of mar- 
tyrs. The massacre lasted, in Paris, eight days and nights, without 
any apparent diminution of the fury of the murderers. 

10. Charles commanded the same scene to be renewed in every 
town throughout the kingdom ; and fifty thousand Protestants are 
believed to have fallen victims to the monarch's order. A few com- 
manders, however, refused to obey the edict : one wrote back to the 
court, " that he commanded soldiers, not assassins ;" and even the 
public executioner of a certain town, when a dagger was put into his 
hands, threw it from him, and declared himself above the crime. 
The prince of Navarre, who had espoused the king's sister, and his 
companion the young prince of Conde, were spared only on the con- 
dition of becoming Catholics ; but both yielded in appearance only. 
A circumstance as horrible as the massacre itself, was the joy it ex- 
cited. Philip II., thinking Protestantism subdued, sent to congratu- 
late the court of France : medals to commemorate the event were 
struck at Rome ; and the pope went in state to his cathedral, and 
returned public thanks to Heaven for this signal mercy. 

11. But the crime from which so much was expected, produced 
neither peace nor advantage ; and the civil war was renewed witli 
greater force than ever : mere abhorrence of the massacre causcvl 
many Catholics to turn Huguenots ; and although the latter were au 
first paralyzed by the blow, the former were stung by remorse and 
shame. Charles himself seemed stricken already by avenging fate. 
As the accounts of the murders of old men, women, and children, were 



344 ,. MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

successively brought to him, while the massacre continued, he drew 
aside M. Ambroise, his first surgeon, to whom he was much attached, 
although he was a Protestant, and said to him, " Ambroise, I know 
not what has come over me these two or three days, but I find my 
mind and body in disorder ; I see everythuig as if I had a fever ; 
every moment, as well waking as sleeping, the hideous and bloody 
faces of the killed appear before me ; I wish the weak and innocent 
Iiad not been included." From that time a continued fever preyed 
upon him, and, eighteen months later, carried him to the grave, 
(May 1574,) but not until he had been compelled to grant the Hu- 
guenots a peace, after seeing that his grand and sweeping crime had 
but enfeebled the Catholic party, instead of insuring its triumph. 

12. At the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, civil war 
IV THE ^^® raging in the Netherlands. During the six years 
NETHER- of the administration of the duke of Alva, Philip's gov- 

LANPs. ernor in that country, the land was desolated by the in- 
satiate cruelty of one of the greatest monsters of wickedness the 
world has ever seen ; and it is the recorded boast of Alva himself 
that, during his brief administration, he caused eighteen thousand of 
the inhabitants to perish by the hands of the executioner. At length, 
in 1572, a general rising against the Spanish power was organized, 
the prince of Orange being at the head of the revolters. After a 
v»^ar of varied fortunes on both sides, in 1576 the States-general, or 
congress, of most of the Batavian and Belgic provinces, met, and as- 
sumed the reins of government in the name of the king, and soon 
after concluded a union between the States, which is known as the 
Pacification of Ghent. ^ The expulsion, from the country, of Spanish 
soldiers and other foreigners was decreed ; Alva's sanguinary de- 
crees and edicts against heresy, were repealed, and religious tolera- 
tion guaranteed. 

13. Ere long, however, the confederacy thus formed fell to pieces, 
owing to jealousies between the Catholic and Protestant States ; 
and it became evident that freedom could be attained only by a closer 
union of the provinces, resting on an entire separation from Spain. 
Acting on this belief, in January 1579 the prince of Orange con- 
voked an assembly of deputies at Utrecht," where was signed the 

1. Ohcnt is a city of Belgium, thirty miles north-west from Brussels. It belonged, success- 
ively, to the counts of Flanders and the dukes of Bur' gundy ; but the citizens enjoyed a great 
degree of independence. It was the birth-place of the emperor Charles V. {Map No. XV.) 

2. Utrecht is a city of Holland, on the old Rhine, twenty miles south-east from Amsterdam. In 



Chap. III.] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 345 

famous act called the U?iion of Utrecht, the real basis or fundamental 
compact of the Republic of the United f)rovinces. Early in the 
following year, 1580, the States-general assembled at Antwerp,^ and, 
in spite of all the opposition of the Catholic deputies, the authority 
of Spain was renounced forever, and the " United Provinces" de- 
clared a free and independent State. Philip, however, still waged 
a vindictive war against them, while they received important aid 
from Elizabeth of England, a circumstance which led Philip to de- 
clare war against the latter country. 

14. The destinies of the unhappy queen of Scotland had long 
been implicated with the designs of the Catholics of Europe against 
the power and throne of Elizabeth. About the time of the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew, the infamous duke of Alva, the Spanish gov- 
ernor of the Netherlands, had formed a project of uniting with the 
English Catholics and Mary in a confederacy against Elizabeth ; and 
Mary was charged with countenancing the design ; but although par- 
liament applied for her immediate trial, Elizabeth was satisfied with 
increasing the rigor and strictness of her confinement. Mary was 
subsequently, and repeatedly, charged with being cognizant of simi-" 
lar plans ; but her participation in any of them is exceedingly doubt- 
ful. At length, however, an act of parliament was passed authoriz- 
ing her trial ; and after an investigation, in which law and justice 
were little regarded, she was condemned to death. Elizabeth, after 
some delay and hesitation, signed the warrant for her execution, 
which, she said, she designed to keep by her, to be used only in case 
of the attempt of Mary to escape ; but her council, having obtained 
possession of it from her private secretary, hastily despatched it to 
those who had charge of the prisoner, and the unhappy Mary was 
beheaded, after having been in captivity nineteen years. (1587.) 

15. The execution of the queen of Scots inflamed the resentment 
of the Catholics throughout Europe, and gave additional vigor to 
the preparations of Philip II. for an invasion of England, a project 
which he had long had in contemplation, and by which he hoped to 
destroy the power of the great supporter of the Prostestant cause. 
With justice, perhaps, Philip complained of the depredations which 

nddiUon to the famous act called the " Union of Utrecht," signed here on the 29;h of January, 
1579, the treaties of Utrecht which terminated the war of the Spanish succession, and gave 
peace to Europe, (see p. 405, were concluded here in 1713 and J 714. (J\Iap No, XV.) 

1. Antwerp is a maritime city of Belgium, on the north bank of the Scheldt, twenty-six 
miles north from Brussels. In the sixteenth century Antwerp enjoyed a more extensive foreign 
trade than any other city in Europe. {M'lp No. XV.) 



346 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

the English, under their great admiral Sir Francis Drake, had for 
many years committed on the Spanish possessions in South America, 
and more than once on the coasts of Spain itself; and now a vast 
armament was prepared to sweep the English from the seas, ravage 
their coasts, burn their towns, and dethrone their Protestant queen. 

16. In May, 1588, the Spanish fleet of one hundred and thirty 
ships, some the largest that had ever plowed the deep, carrying, ex- 
clusive of eight thousand sailors, no less than twenty 

SPANISH thousand of the bravest troops in the Spanish armies, a 
ARMADA. \r^YgQ mvadlug force in those days, sailed from the har- 
bor of Lisbon for the English coast. The pope had blessed the ex- 
pedition, and offered the sovereignty of England as the conqueror's 
prize ; and the Catholics throughout Europe were so confident of 
success that they had named the armament " The Invincible Ar- 
mada." The queen of England beheld the preparations, and heard 
the vauntings of her enemies, with a resolution worthy of the occa- 
sion and the cause. She visited the seaports in person, superintend- 
ed the preparations for defence, and on horseback addressed the 
troops; and such was the enthusiasm which she everywhere inspired, 
that even her Catholic subjects joined their countrymen, heart and 
hand, against foreign domination. Lord Howard of Effingham was 
appointed admiral of the fleet; Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, the 
most renowned seamen in Europe, served under him ; while an army 
of forty-five thousand men was organized for the defence of the 
coast and the capital. 

17. After the Armada had sailed from Lisbon it suffered consider- 
ably from a storm off the French coast : in passing through the Eng- 
lish Channel it was seriously harassed, during several days, by the 
lighter English vessels ; and while at anchor off Calais, the English 
sent a number of fire-ships into the midst of the fleet, destroyed 
several vessels, and threw the others into such confusion that the 
Spanish admiral no longer thought of victory, but only of escape. 
As the south wind blew, he was unable to retrace his course, and 
therefore resolved to return by coasting the northern shores of Scot- 
land and Ireland. But his disasters were not ended : many of his 
vessels were driven, by a storm, on the coasts of Norway and Scot- 
land : off the Irish coast a second storm was experienced, v/ith al- 
most equal loss ; and only a few shattered vessels of this mighty ar- 
mament returned to Spain, to bring intelligence of the calamities that 
liad overwhelmed the rest. The defeat of the armada was regarded 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CEIv^TURY. 347 

as the triumph of the Protestant cause ; it exerted a favorable in- 
fluence on the welfare of tlie United Provinces, and virtually secured 
their independence ; and it raised the courage of the Huguenots iu 
France, and completely destroyed the decisive influence which Spain 
had long maintained in the affairs of Europe. Henceforth the naval 
power and the commerce of Spain declined ; and the king, at his 
death in 1598, bequeathed a vast debt to a nation whose resources, 
notwithstanding her rich mines of gold and silver in the New World, 
were already exhausted. 

18. The internal history of France, since the massacre of St. Bar- 
tholomew, and the death of Charles IX., is filled with deplorable 
civil wars during most of the remaining portion of the sixteenth 
century. Charles was succeeded by his brother Henry III., who 
endeavored to play the opposing Catholic and Protestant parties 
against each other ; but being obliged, at length, by the violence 
of the Catholic leagite^ to throw himself on the protection of the 
Protestants, he was assassinated by James Clement, a fanatic 
monk, just as he was on the point of driving his enemies from 
Paris. (Aug. 1589.) In the death of Henry III., the house of 
Valois became extinct, and the throne passed by right of inherit- 
ance to the house of Bourbon, in the person of the Protestant Henry 
of Navarre, who now became king of France, with the title of Henry 
lY. He was at first opposed by the Catholic league ; but after a 
struggle of four years, in which he received some aid from Eliza- 
beth of England, he abjured the Protestant faith, and thus became 
king of a united people. (1593-4.) To the Huguenots, how^ever, 
he atoned for his compulsory desertion, by issuing, in ^^ ^^^^ 
1598, the celebrated Edict of Nantes,^ which terminated edict oir 
the religious wars that had distracted France during ^^^^i^-*- 
thirty-six years. The Edict of Nantes secured to the Protestants 
the free exercise of their religion, and an equal claim with the Catho- 
lics to all offices and dignities. The parliament made considerable 
opposition to the registering of this edict, and the king was obliged 
to use menaces, as well as persuasion, to overcome their obstinacy. 

19. The history of England, after the defeat of the Spanish Ar- 
mada, offers few events of interest during the remainder of the reigu 

1. Jfantes is a celebrated commercial city and seaport of France, about thirty-four miles 
from the mouth of the Loire, and two hundred and ten south-west from Paris. Before the 
conquest of Gaul by the Romans it was already a considerable city, and the capital of (he 
JYamnctes, who distinguished themselves by their opposition to Julius Csesar. (Map No, XIll.) 



M^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of Elizabeth. A general insurrection, however, broke out in Ire- 
land in 1598, the design of which was to effect the entire expulsion 
of the English from the island ; but although the insurgents were 
supplied with troops and ammunition by the Spanish monarch, and 
the pope held out ample indulgences in favor of those who should 
enlist to combat the English heretics, yet the rebels ultimately failed 
in their enterprise, after a sanguinary war which lasted six years. 

20. The splendor of Elizabeth's reign is a theme on which Eng- 
lish historians love to dwell. At this time England held the balance 

VII cHARAc- ^^ power in Christendom, a position that was owing, in 
TKR OF no small degree, to the personal character of the sover- 

ELizABETH ^j^^^ -^^ mouarch of England ever surpassed Elizabeth 
in firmness, penetration, and address ; and non^ ever conducted the 
government with more uniform success. Yet her political maxims 
were arbitrary in the extreme ; and she had little regard for the lib- 
erties of her people, or the privileges of parliament — believing that 
her subjects were entitled to no other rights than their ancestors had 
enjoyed. The principles of the English constitution were not yet 
developed. Elizabeth died in the year 1603, being then in the sev- 
entieth year of her age, and the forty-fifth of her reign. 

lY. CoTEMPOE-ARY HisTORY. — 1. If WO pass from European his- 
tory to that of other portions of the world in the sixteenth century, 
the most prominent events that attract our notice are the establish- 
ment of the Portuguese in Southern Asia, and of the Spaniards in 
Mexico and South America, — the rise of a Mogul empire in India, 
and of a new dynasty in Persia. x\fter the fleet of De Gama had 
doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the enterprises of the Portuguese 
were directed to the securing of the commerce of the Indian seas ; but, 
soon after, under the viceroyalty of the illustrious Albuquerque, 
they formed numerous settlements and established forts and trading 
houses throughout all the coasts. In the year 1507 Al- 
TUGUESE buquerque took possession of Ormus,^ then the most 
COLONIAL splendid and polished city of Asia, situated at the en- 
trance of the Persian Gulf ; and when the king of Persia, 

1. Ormus, ancienlly called Ozyri.i, is a rocky island at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It 
would scarcely be worth notice were it not for its former celebrity and importance. Before the 
appearance of the Portuguese in the East it was a great emporium, being the centre of the 
trade of the Persian Gulf, and of the contiguous countries, and possessing great wealth. The 
Portuguese held it till 162-i, when it was wresled from them by Shah Abbas, assisted by an 
English fleet. The booty acquired by the captors on tliis occasion is said to have amounted to two 
millions sterling. This once rich and flourishing emporium is now in a state of irreparable decay. 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 349 

to whom it had long belonged, demanded tribute from the Portu- 
guese, the viceroy, pointing to his cannons and balls, replied : " There 
is the coin with which the king of Portugal pays tribute." The at- 
tempts of the Venetians and Mohammedans to expel the intruders 
were ineffectual, and in 1510, Goa,^ the chief of the Portuguese es- 
tablishments, was made the capital of the Portuguese empire in 
India. The Portuguese introduced themselves into China also ; and 
when their colonial empire was at its greatest extent, it embraced 
the coasts of Africa from Guinea to the Red Sea, and extended 
over all Southern and Eastern Asia ; although throughout this vast 
extent of country, they had little more than a chain of factories and 
forts. On the union of Portugal with Spain (1580), the Portuguese 
East India possessions followed the fate of the mother country, and 
passed into the unskilful hands of the Spaniards (1582) ; but when 
the intolerable cruelty of the Spanish government had driven the 
Dutch to revolt, the latter extended their commerce to the Indies, 
and, at the close of the century, had possession of nearly all that had 
formed the colonial empire of the Portuguese. 

2. The Spaniards were more successful in making and retaining 
conquests in the New World. Soon after the discovery ^^ Spanish 
of America they extended their settlements over the colonial 
islands of the West Indies, which were depopulated by ^^^p^»^- 
the excessive and unhealthy labor imposed by them upon the na- 
tives. In 1519 the adventurer Cortez landed with a small force on 
the eastern coast of Mexico ; and in the course of two years the 
wealthy and populous kingdom of the Montezumas was reduced to a 
province of Spain. Yet, after all his services to his country, Cortez^ 
like Columbus, was persecuted at home. It was with difficulty that 
he could gain an audience from the emperor, Charles Y. When one 
day he pushed through the crowd which surrounded the coach of the 
emperor, and placed his foot on the step of the door, Charles asked 
who this man was. " It is he," replied Cortez, " who has given you 
more kingdoms than your ancestors left you cities." 

3. After Mexico, the Spaniards sought other countries to conquer 
and depopulate. In 1532 Pizarro, a soldier of fortune, taking with 
him a force of only two hundred and fifty foot soldiers, sixty horse- 

1. Ooa, (the old town,) ia on an island of the same name on the south-western coast of Hin- 
dostan, two hundred and fifty miles south-east from Bombaj'. The old city, now almost de- 
serted except by priests, is " a city of churches ; and the wealth of provinces seems to have 
been expended in their erection." New Goa, built on the sea-shoro about five miles from the 
old town, is a well-built city, with a population of about twenty thousand. 



350 MODERN HISTORY. [Paut 11. 

men, and twelve small cannon, invaded Peru, the greatest, the best 
governed, and most civilized nation of the New World. Pizarro 
and his companions marked their route with blood ; but wherever 
thej directed their course they conquered in the name of Charles 
V. ; and before the close of the century the Spanish empire in 
Ameriea embraced the islands of the West Indies, all Mexico and 
Peru, and the coasts of nearly all South America. The enormous 
quantity of the precious metals which Spain drew from her American 
230ssessions contributed to make her, for awhile, the preponderating 
power in Europe ; but an inordinate thirst for the gold and silver of 
America led the Spaniards to neglect agriculture and manufactures. 
The Spanish colonies increased but slowly in population ; the capital 
itself was ruined ; and before the close of the sixteenth century the 
best days of Spain were over. 

4. During the three hundred years previous to 1525, India, or 
Hindostan, was governed by Affghan princes, whose seat 
MOGUL EM- of government was Delhi. In 1525, Baber, the fifth in 
piRE IN descent from Tamerlane, and sovereign of a little princi- 
pality between Kashgar^ and Samarcand, entered Hin- 
dostan at the head of a large army, defeated and killed the last 
Affghan sovereign, and seated himself on the throne of Delhi.'^ With 
him began the race of Mogul j^rinccs, as they are called by Eu- 
ropeans, although their native tongue was Turkish. In the next cen- 
tury the Mogul empire was consolidated under Aurungzebe, who, by 
murdering his relatives, and shutting his father uj) in his harem, was 
enabled to ascend the throne of Hindostan in 1 659. But notwithstand- 
ing the means by which he had obtained sovereign authority, he gov- 
erned with much wisdom, consulted the welflire of his people, watched 
over the preservation of justice, and the purity of manners, and, by 
a wise administration, sought to confirm his own power. After his 
death, in 1707, the Mogul empire began to decline; and even under 



1. Kashgar^ the most western town of any importance in the Chinese empire, is about four 
hundred and fifty miles east from Samarcand. It was a celebrated commercial city before the 
Christian era, and, mider several dynasties, it long formed an independent kingdom. The 
Ciiiiiese obtained possession of it about the middle of the eighteenth century. 

2. Delhi is a city of northern Hindostan, about eight hundred and thirty miles north-west from 
Calcutta. It appears that no less than seven successive cities have stood on the ground occupied 
by Delhi and its ruins. Delhi was the residence of the Hindoo rajahs before 1193, when it was 
conquered by the Affghans, In 1398 Delhi was taken and plundered by Tamerlane; in 1525 
by Baber ; in 1736 the Mahrattas burned the suburbs, and in 1739 Deliii was entered and pil- 
laged by Nadir Shah, Since 1803 it has, together with its territory, virtually belonged to the 
British. 



Chap. Ill] SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 351 

Aurungzebe it was much inferior, in extent and resources, to the em- 
pire now held by Britain in the same country. 

5. TVe have already alluded to the revival of the Persian empire 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century. At that period we find 
the youthful Ismael, who traced his descent to the Sheik ^^^ ^^^ 
Sufifee, a holy person who lived in the 'time of Tamer- persian 
lane, heading a band of adherents against a neighboring empire. 
prince, and, in the course of four years, reducing all Persia to his 
sway. For fifteen years fortune smiled on his arms ; but he was at 
length defeated by Selim, the sultan of Constantinople. The latter, 
however, reaped no real advantage from his dearly-bought victory ; 
and when Ismael died he left a name on which the Persians dwell 
with enthusiasm, as the restorer of their country, and the founder 
of one of the most brilliant of the Mohammedan dynasties — called 
the Sujfeean^ or Stiffaveaii, from the holy sheik Sufiee. 

6. Tamasp succeeded his father Ismael, when only ten years of 
age. His reign was long and prosperous. Anthony Jenkinson, one 
of the earliest adventurers to Persia, visited the court of Tamasp as 
an envoy from queen Elizabeth ; but the intolerance of the Moham- 
medan soon drove the Christian away. The three sons of Tamasp 
in succession made an effort for the crown ; but their short reigns 
merit little notice. At length, in 1582, the youthful Abbas, a 
grandson of Tamasp, was proclaimed king by some of the discontent- 
ed nobles, and forced to appear in arms against his father Moham- 
med, who was deserted by his army, and is not mentioned again in 
history. But Abbas did not long remain a tool in the hands of 
others, for, seizing the reigns of power, he soon rose to distinction, 
defeated the Turks in many battles, in 1622 took Ormuz from the 
Portuguese, and became supreme ruler of a mighty empire. During 
his reign commenced an amicable intercourse between the English 
and Persian nations, which continued for many years. 

7. Abbas was, in many respects, an enlightened prince : his foreign 
policy was generally liberal, and he extended toleration to other re- 
ligions : he spent his revenues in improvements : caravanseras, 
bridges, aqueducts, bazaars, mosques, and colleges, arose in every 
quarter ; and Ispahan^ the capital was splendidly embellished. But 

1. Ispahan^ formerly the capital of Persia, is situated between the Caspian Sea and llie Persian 
Gnlf, two hundred and eleven miles south of Teheran, the modern capital. Although Ispahan 
has now a population of over one hundred thousand, yet it presents to the traveller, in its 
buildings at least, little beyond the magnificent ruins of its former greatness. Under the reign 
of Shah Abbas, Ispahan was the emporium of the Asiatic world. The city was at that time 



352 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

as a parent, and relative, the character of Abbas appears in a most 
revolting light. He had four sons, on whom he doated as long as 
they were children, but when they grew up toward manhood they 
became objects of jealousy, if not of hatred : their friends were con- 
sidered as his enemies ; and praises of them were as a knell to his 
soul. The eldest was assassinated, and the eyes of the rest put out, 
by order of their inhuman parent. Horrid tragedies were of fre- 
quent occurrence in the harem of this Eastern tyrant. Yet such is 
the king whom the Persians most admire ; and so precarious is the 
nature of despotic power in Persia, that monarchs of a similar char- 
acter alone have successfully ruled the nation. When this monarch 
ceased to reign, Persia ceased to prosper. 

8. Abbas was succeeded by a series of imbecile tyrants, and in 
1 722 the country was overrun by the Afifghans, who, during seven 
wretched years, converted the fairest provinces of Persia into deserts, 
her cities into charnel houses, and destroyed the lives of a million 
of her people. At length the famous Kouli Khan, a brigand chief, 
was raised to the throne with the title of Nadir Shah. He distin- 
guished himself alike by his victories and his ferocity ; but being 
assassinated in 1743, his death was followed by a long-continued 
civil war. The most noted of the Persian monarchs since the death 
of Nadir Shah have been the eunuch Mehemet Khan, Futteli Ali 
Shah, and Abbas Mirza, the latter of whom ascended the throne in 
1835. 

twenty-four miles in circuit, and contained a million of people. Its bazaars were filled with 
merchandize from every quarter of the globe, mingled with rich bales of its own celebrated 
manufactures ; and the Shah's court was the resort of ambassadors from the proudest kingdoms 
of the East, and from Europe also. 



Chap. IV.J SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 353 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

I. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Gennan history from 1558 to 1G18. The events that led to the "Thirty 
Years' War." Extent of that war. — 2. Ferdinand succeeds Matthias as emperor of Germany, 
but is deposed in Bohemia. Frederic the elector-palatine. Thk Palatine Period of the 
WAR. [Prague.]— 3. Mansfeldt is xmable to cope with the imperial generals. Protestant alli- 
ance with the Danes, and opening of the Danish Period of the war. Defeat of the Danish 
king by Tilly. [Lutter. Gottingen. Brunswick.] — 4. The Danes are driven from Hungary, 
and most of Denmark is conquered. Ambitious views of Ferdinand. Siege of Stralsund. 
Treaty of Lubec. [Stralsund. Liibec.]— 5. The hopes of a general peace. Tyranny of Ferdi- 
nand, and revolt of the Protestants. Interposition of Gustavus Adolphus, and opening of the 
Swedish Period of the war — 6. Intrigues of Richelieu,~leading to the invasion of Germany 
by the Swedes in 1630. [Rochelle.] — 7. Contempt in which the Swedes were held by the GcJr- 
mans. [Pomerania.] Character of the opposing forces. The military system of Gustavus. — 8. 
Early successes of the Swedes. Magdeburg plundered and burned by the imperialists. [Mag- 
deburg.] — 9. Compensation for the loss of Magdeberg. [Leipsic] Gustavus overruns Ger- 
many. Death of Tilly. — 10. Successes of Wallenstein. [Nuremburg. Dresden.] Death of 
Gustavus. [Lutzen.] — 11. Close of the Swedish period of the war, and death of Wallenstein. 
The French Period of the war. — 12. Circumstances of the leaguing of the French with the 
Protestants. The Rhine becomes the chief seat of the war.— 13. The remainder of the Thirty 
Years' War. Death of Ferdinand. Death of Louis XKI. and Richelieu. Treaty of Westphalia. 
[Westphalia.] Condition of Germany. — 14. Chief articles of the treaty of Westphalia. 

II. ENGLISH HISTORY :— THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. 

1. England during the period of the Thirty Years' War. L^nion of England and Scotland, 
1603. — 2. The character of James I., and the character of his reign. — 3. His successor Charles 
I. His misfortunes. — 4. Difficulties that immediately followed his accession. The second and 
third parliament. Dissolution of the latter.— 5. The interval until the assembling of another 
parliament. Conduct of the English clergy, and persecution of the puritans. Scotch rebel- 
lion. Marchof the Covenanters into England. Fourth and fifth parliament. — G. Opening acts 
of The Long Parliament. Impeachment of Strafford and Laud. Remarks.— 7. Continued 
encroachments of Parliament. Irish rebellion. Impeachment of five members of the Com- 
mons.— 8. The king erects his standard at Nottingham, and opens the civil war— 1 042. [Not- 
tingham.] Strength of the opposing parties.— !1. The battles of Edghill and Newbery. [Edg- 
hill. Newbery.] — 10. The Scotch League. — 11. Campaigns of 1644 and 1645. [Marston- 
Moor. Naseby.] The king a prisoner. — 12. Civil and religious dissensions. Oliver Crom- 
well. — 13. The reaction in favor of the king arrested by Cromwell. Trial and execution 
of Charles I. 1649.— 14. Remarks upon this measure. Character of Charles.— 15. Abolition 
of Monarchy. Cromwell's military successes. [Worcester.] — 16. War with Holland 
Navigation act. Naval battle. — 17. Continuance of the war, and defeat of the British. [Good 
win Sands.] Bravado of Tromp.— 18. Defeat of the Dutch in the English Channel. The final 
conflict, and death of Tromp. Peace with Holland. — 19. Controversy between Cromwell and 
Parliament. The Protectorate. — 20. Continued dissensions and parliamentary opposition 
to Cromwell. The army. War with Spain.— 21. Character of Cromwell's administration. Atr- 
tempt to invest him with the dignity of king. — 22. Remainder of Cromwell's life. His death. — 
23. Richard. His abdication. Anarchy. Restoration of monarchy, 1660. — 24. First im- 
pressions produced by Charles II. His character. The parliaraetlt of 1661.— 25. Manners and 

23 



354 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

morals of the nation.— 26. Increasing discontent. War with Holland. The capital threatened. 
[Dunkirk. Chatham.]— 27. The plague of 1665. The great fire of 1G66.— 28, Treaty of Breda. 
[Breda. New Netherlands. Acadia and Nova Scotia.j Another war with Holland. Treaty 
ofNimeguen. [Orange. Nimeguen.]— 29. The professions and the secret designs of Charles. 
His intrigues with the French monarch. His growing unpopularity. Popish plot. Russell and 
Sidney. Absolute power of ihe king. His death.— 30. James II. His general policy. The 
approaching crisis.— 31. Arbitrary and unpopular measures of the king. [Windsor.]— 32. 
Monmouth's rebellion. The inhuman .Jeffries.— 33. Events of the Revolution of 1088.-34. 
Settlement of the crown on William and Mary. Declaration of rights. — 35. Scotch and Irish 
rebellion. [Killiecrankie.] Events that led to a general European war. French history towards 
the close of the century. Death of William, 1702. 

III. FRENCH HISTORY :— WARS OF LOUIS XIV. 

I. The Administration of Cardinal Richelieu, 1624 — 42. — 2. Mazarin's administra- 
tion, 1642—61. Treaty of Westphalia, and war of the Fronde.— 3. Continuance of the war be- 
tween France and Spain. Conde and Turenne. England joins France in the war. [Arras. 
Valenciennes. Flanders.]— 4. Both France and Spain desirous of peace. Treaty of the Pyren- 
ees, 1659. [Bidassoa. Gravelines. Roussillou. Franche-Cointe.]— 5. Louis assumes the 
administration of government. [Louvre. Invalides. Versailles. Languedoc.]— 6. Ambitious 
projects of Louis. His invasion of the Spanish Netherlands. [Brabant.] — 7. Capture of 
Franche-Comte. Triple alliance against Louis. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelie. [Aix-la-Chapelle] 
— 8. Designs of Louis against Holland. — 9. The bayonet. Comparative strength of the French 
and Dutch forces. — 10. Invasion of Holland. [Amsterdam.] The inhabitants think of aban- 
doning their country. Prince William of Orange eftects a general league against the French 
monarch. (1674.)— 11. The war in the Spanish Netherlands. Turenne andCond6. Duquesne. 
— 12. Peace of Nimeguen, 1678. Remarks of Voltaire.— 13. Great prosperity and increasing 
ascendancy of France. The greatest glories of the reign of Louis.-.-14. Madame de Maintenon. 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. — 15. General league, and war, against Louis, 1686 — 8. His 
activity in meeting his enemies. — 16. Successes of the French commanders. Battle of La 
Hogue. [Beachy Head. Namur. La Hogue.] — 17. Campaign of 1693. Peace of Ryswick, 
1697. State of France at the close of the seventeenth century. [Nerwinden. Ryswick. 
Strasburg.] 

IV. COTEMPORARY HISTORY. 

1. Increasing extent of the field of history. — 2. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Gustavus 
Adolphus, and his successors. — 3. Poland, during the seventeenth century. The reign of John 
Sobieski, 1674—97. His victories over the Turks. [Kotzira].— 4. Siege of Vienna by the 
Turks and Hungarians. [Vienna.] — 5. Its deliverance by Sobieski, 1683. — 6. Complete dis- 
comfiture of the Turks. Ingratitude of Austria, and decline of Poland.— 7. Russia, at the 
commencement of the seventeenth century. Peter the Great. His efforts for improving the 
condilionof his people and couutrj'. [Azof. Dwina. Volga. St. Petersburg.]— 8. His travels, 
&c. Political acts of his reign. — 9. Turkey from the early part of the sixteenth to the latter 
part of the seventeenth century. Decline of her power at the close of the century. [Zenta. 
Carlowitz. Transylvania. Sclavonia. Podolia. Ukraine.]— 10. Italy during the seventeenth 
century. Effects of the Relbrmaticn. Of the Spanish rule in Italy.— 11. The low state of 
morals. General suffering and degradation. — 12. The Spanish peninsula during the seven- 
teenth century. Expulsion of tlie Moors, 1610. — 13. Revolt of Portugal, 1640. Independence 
of Holland, J648. Treaty of Westphalia, 1648.-14. The Asiatic nations during the seven- 
teenth century. Persia. Chiua.—15. The great Mogul empire of Asia. Aurungzebe.— 16. Co- 
lonial Establishments. Dutch colonies. [Surinam. ]\loluccas. Ceylon.] Colonial policy 
of the Dutch.— 17. Spanish colonial empire.— 18. iMaterials and character of Spanish colonial 
history. — 19. French colonization in the New World. In the Old. [Madagascar. Pondicherry.] 
— 20. English colonial possessions. The London East India Company. [Java. Madras. Bom- 
bay. Calcutta.]— 21. Englisli colonization in America. History of the British American colo- 
nies during the seventeenth century. The early colonists of New England.— 22. Instructive 
and interesting character of early American history. Omission of a separate compend of 
American history in this work. 



Chap. IV] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 355 

1. The TmRTY Years' War. — 1. From the death of Charles V., 
in the year 1558, to the year 1618, there were no events in German 
history that exercised any important influence on the politics of 
Europe. At the latter period, however, the German emperor, 
Matthias, succeeded in procuring the subordinate crown of Bohemia 
for his cousin Ferdinand, a bigoted Catholic ; a circumstance which 
increased the hostile feelings that had long existed between the Ro- 
man Catholic and Protestant parties in Bohemia ; but when Ferdi- 
nand banished the new faith from his dominion, and destroyed the 
Protestant churches, his impolitic conduct led to an open revolt of 
his Protestant subjects. (1618.) This was the commencement of a 
thirty years' war — the last conflict sustained by the Reformation — a 
war indeterminate in its objects, but one which, before its close, in- 
volved, in its complicated relations, nearly all the states of continental 
Europe. 

2. While this petty war was raging on the narrow theatre of the 
Bohemian territory, Matthias died ; and Ferdinand, to the great 
alarm of the Protestant party throughout Germany, was elected em-- 
peror of all the German States, under the title of Ferdinand II. 
(1619) ; but at the very moment of his election he received the in- 
telligence of his deposition in Bohemia, which had just been made 
public among the people. The Bohemians now chose Frederic, the 
elector-palatine, son-in-law of the British monarch James I., for their 
sovereign ; but Frederic was unequal to the crisis, and ^ palatine 
being besieged in his own capital, he lost the battle of period of 
Prague^ by his negligence or cowardice. Ferdinand, as- ^"^ ^^^' 
sisted by a Spanish force under Spinola, and by the Catholic league 
of Germany, now overran Bohemia, and compelled Frederic to seek 
refuge in Holland, where he dwelt without a kingdom, and without 
courage to reconquer it, — maintained at the expense of his father- 
in-law, the king of England. The punishment inflicted upom Bohe- 
mia was severe in the extreme : twenty-seven of the Protestant lead- 
ers were condemned to death ; — by degrees all Protestant clergyman 
were banished from the country ; — and, finally, it was declared that 
no subject who did not adhere to the Roman Catholic church would 
be tolerated. Thirty thousand families, driven away by this cruel 

1. Prague, the capital city of Bohemia, is situated on both sides of the Moldau, a brancli of 
the Elbe, one hundred and fifty-two miles north-west of Vienna, and seventy-two miles south- 
east from Dresden. Jerome, the friend of the great Bohemian reformer Jolm Huss, was a native 
of this city, and was thence surnamed, " of Prague." (Map No. XVII.) 



S56 ^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

edict, took refuge in the Protestant States of Saxony and Branden- 
burg. Thus closed the Palatine period of the thirty years' war. 

3. After the flight of Frederic, his general Mansfeldt still deter- 
mined to maintain the Protestant cause against the emperor Ferdi- 
nand ; but he found himself unable to cope with the imperial gen- 
erals, Tilly and Wallenstein. The Protestant towns of Lower Saxony, 
foreseeing the fate to which they might be subjected, next took up 
arms, and having entered into an alliance with Christian IV. of Den- 
mark, made him captain general of the confederated 

n. DANISH ' 1 & 

PERIOD OF army. (1625.) Thus opened the Danish period of the 
THE WAR. ^.^Y. With a body of twenty-five thousand men, consist- 
ing of Danes, Germans, Scotch, and English, the Danish kiug crossed 
the Elbe, where he was joined by seven thousand Saxons ; but, after 
some successes, he was defeated by Tilly near the castle of Lutter,* 
on the road from Gottingen^ to Brunswick,^ with the loss of four 
thousand men, besides a vast number of prisoners. (Aug. 26th, 1626.) 

4. In the following year, 1627, the Danes were driven from Ger- 
many by Wallenstein, the imperial commander, who had now in- 
creased his forces to one hundred thousand men. Not content with 
driving Christian from German}^, Wallenstein pursued him into 
Denmark ; and soon the whole of the peninsula, with the exception 
of one fortress, was conquered, and the king was obliged to take 
refuge in his islands. The ambitious views of Ferdinand now aimed 
at the extirpation of the Lutheran heresy throughout his own empire, 
and the reestablishment of the Catholic faith throughout the entire 
north, by the subjugation of Norway and Sweden, in addition to 
Denmark. As a preliminary step towards the accomplishment 
of this gigantic undertaking, Wallenstein was first to secure the 
dominion of the Baltic and the North Sea. Assisted by a Spanish 
fleet, he took possession of several ports on the Baltic ; but the citi- 
zens of Stralsund,' aided by five thousand Swedish and Scottish 
troops, defended their walls with such determined courage and per- 
severance, that Wallenstein was forced to abandon the siege, after a 

1. Lutter, "near Barenberg, in Hanover," sonth-west from Brunswick. Tliis battle was 
fought Aug. 2Glli, 1626. 

!2. Gottingeit, in the kingdom of Flanover, is fifty-six miles south-west from Brunswick. It is 
especially noted for its university, which, down to 1831, was fully entitled to its appellaticn 
" the queen of German universities." i^^Iap No. XVII.) 

3. Brunswick^ the early seat of the dukes of that name, is a city of Germany, situated on the 
Ocker, a branch of the Weser, thirty-seven miles a little south of east from Hanover. {Map 
No. XVII.) 

4. Stralsund is a strongly-fortified Prussian town, on the narrow strait of the Baltic which 
separates the island of Rugen from the continent. {Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 357 

loss of twelve thousand men. This signal discomfiture induced the 
emperor to consent to treat for peace with Denmark ; and by the 
treaty of Lubec/ Christian was restored to his dominions, on the 
condition of abandoning his German allies. (May, 1629.) Thus 
terminated the Danish period of the thirty years' war. 

5. It had been hoped that the treaty of Lubec would prove the 
forerunner of a general pacification ; and the subjects, the allies, and 
the enemies of Ferdinand, now united in imploring him to put an 
end to a civil war which had been waged with a ferocity hitherto un- 
known since the ages of Gothic barbarism. But, the Protestants 
being subdued, and no enemy left to oppose the emperor, the Komau 
Catholics thought the moment too favorable to be neglected, and 
Ferdinand was urged on by them to exercise the most intolerable 
tyranny over his Protestant subjects. The last beam of hope from 
the emperor's clemency was extinguished, and the Protestants only 
awaited the arrival of a leader to throw ofP a yoke which ^^^ Swedish 
had become insupportable. A deliverer was found in period of 
Gustavus Adolphus, the Protestant king of Sweden. The ''"^^ ^^''^• 
circumstances that led to his interposition, — the opening of the 
Swedish period of the war — show how tangled has often been the 
web of European politics. 

6. Cardinal Richelieu, the able minister of Louis XIII. of 
France, after having humbled the Huguenots by the capture of Ro- 
chelle,'^ their last stronghold, directed his great powers to the abase- 
ment of the house of Austria. With this view he was instrumental 
in depriving Ferdinand of his ablest general, Wallenstein, whose 
dismissal from power was successfully urged by an assembly of the 
German States in the summer of 1630. Richelieu had previously 

1. Lubec, the capital of the " Hanseatic towns," is situated on the river Trave, about twelve 
miles from its entrance into the Baltic, and thirty-six miles north-east from Hamburg. The 
surrounding territory subject to Lubec consists of a district of about eighty square miles. (Map 
No. XVII.) 

2. Rochelle is a town and seaport of France on the Atlantic coast, in the former province of 
Saintonge, seventy-six miles south-east from Nantes. During the religious wars, and especially 
after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, Rochelle was a stronghold of the Protestants. Invested 
by the Catholic forces in 1572, it withstood a long siege, terminated by a treaty. The numerous 
infractions of that treaty, in the reign of Louis XIII., and imder the ministry of Richelieu, led 
to a second siege, which commenced in August, 1627, and was as violent as the former, and 
longer and more decisive. After six months of heroic resistance, the fiimous engineer, Mele- 
zeau, was directed to bar the entrance to the harbor by an immense dyke, extending nearly 
five thousand feet into the sea, the remains of which are still visible at low water. The result 
was soon fatally apparent. Famine quickly decimated the ranks of tlie besieged ; and after a 
resistance of fourteen months and eighteen days, Rochelle was compelled to capitulate. Riche- 
lieu n.ade a triumphant entry into the city ; the fortifications were demolislied, and the Pro- 
testants were deprived of their lust place of refuge. (Map No. XIII.) 



368 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

offered his successful mediation in negotiating a six years' armistice 
between the hostile States of Sweden and Poland, with the view of 
leaving Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king, at liberty to turn his 
arms against the German emperor. All the inducements that an 
artful diplomatist could urge were brought to bear upon Gustavus, a 
prince ardent in the Protestant faith, and already a sufferer from 
the insolence and rapacity of Wallenstein ; and the result was a dec- 
laration of war against the German emperor, and an invasion of his 
territory by the Swedes, in the summer of 1630. 

7. When Ferdinand was informed that the Swedish monarch had 
landed in Pomerania- at the head of only fifteen thousand men, he 
treated the affair with much indifference; and the Roman Catholic 
party throughout the empire styled Gustavus, in contempt, the petty 
snow kmg^ who, they said, would speedily melt beneath the rays of 
the imperial sun. But while the German armies were a motley of 
all creeds and nations, bound together only by the ties of a common 
warfare and pillage, the Swedes formed a phalanx of hardy and well- 
disciplined warriors, strengthened by the confidence that God was on 
their side ; and to Him they offered up their prayers twice a day, 
each regiment having its own chaplain. Besides this, Gustavus had 
introduced a new system of military tactics into his army ; and by 
the novelty and boldness of his positions, and the impetuosity of his 
movements, he completely disconcerted the adherents of -the old Ger- 
man routine. 

8. Although some of the Protestant princes of Germany, through 
fear of their emperor, or from jealousy of foreign dominion, hesi- 
tated about joining the new ally of their cause, yet the onset of the 
Swedes was irresistible : they rapidly made themselves masters of all 
Pomerania, and took Frankfort under the eye of the imperial gen- 
eral Tilly ; but they were unable to relieve Magdeburg,'^ which Tilly 
plundered and burned, amid scenes of the most revolting atrocity — 
an act which rendered his name infamous among all classes of the 
German population. 

9. The unfortunate loss of Magdeburg was speedily compensated 

1. Povicrania is a large province of Prussia, extending east from iMecklenberg about two 
hundred miles along the southern coast of the Bailie. Gustavus landed on the islands Wollen 
and Usedom, south-east of Stralsund. The first towns reduced by him were Wolgast and 
Stettin. (J\Iap No. XVII.) 

2. JMagdehurg is a strongly-fortified city, and the capital of Prussian Saxony, situated on the 
Elbe, seventy-four miles south-west from Berlin. Magdeburg has suffered numerous sieges, but 
Its fortifications are now so extensive that it is said it would require fifty thousand men to in- 
vest it. It was plundered and burned by Tilly, May 12th, 1531. {Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 359 

bj formidable accessions of strength received from France and Eng- 
land, and by a great victory gained by Giistavus over Tilly in the 
vicinity of Leipsic.^ (Sept. 7th, 1631.) Gustavus now rapidly 
traversed Germany from the Elbe to the Rhine, pursuing his victo- 
rious career to the borders of Switzerland : all northern and western 
Germany, together with Bohemia, were in the hands of the Protest- 
ants ; and early in the following year Tilly himself was slain on the 
banks of the river Lech, a southern tributary of the Danube, in Ba- 
varia. 

10. Ferdinand now saw no alternative, in his sinking fortunes, but 
to call the great and proud Wallenstein from retirement. His res- 
toration at once gave a new direction to the war. He quickly seized 
Prague, and restored Bohemia to his sovereign ; and Gustavus was 
now obliged to retire within the walls of Nuremberg^ until he could 
rally his troops, which were scattered over Germany. After a tedious 
blockade of Nuremberg, in which both parties lost thirty thousand 
soldiers by famine and the sword, Wallenstein made a sudden move- 
ment towards Dresden ;^ but the advance of Gustavus thwarted his 
plans and brought on that fatal action in which the Swedish hero lost 
his life. On the 16th of November, 1632, the two armies met at 
Lutzen ;* but scarcely had the battle commenced when Gustavus, 
throwing himself before the enemy's ranks, fell pierced by two biiUs. 
After a desperate engagement the Protestants triumphed ; but the 
glory of their victory was dearly bought by the death of their leader. 

1. Leipsic is a celebrated commercial city of the kingdom of Saxony, sixty miles north-west 
from Dresden. It is a manufacturing town of considerable importance, and is the greatest 
book emporium in Uie world. In Oct. 1813, Leipsic was the scene of a most tremendous con- 
flict between Napoleon and the allies, in which the French, greatly inferior in numbers, were 
repulsed with a heavy loss. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. J^Turemberg is a ciiy of Bavaria, ninety-three miles north-west from Munich. It is sur- 
rounded by feudal walls and turrets, and these are inclosed by a ditch one hundred feet wide 
and fifty feet deep, lined throughout with masonry. Nuremberg is celebrated in the history of 
the Reformation, having early embraced its doctrines. (Map No. XVII.) 

3. Dresden, the capital of the kingdom of Saxon)', is situated on the Elbe, one hundred 
miles south-east from Berlin, and two hundred and thirty north-west from Vienna. Population 
mostly Protestant. It has a great number of literary and scientific institutions, and establish- 
ments devoted to education. Dresden and its environs have been the scene of some of the 
most important conflicts in modern warfare, particularly on the 26th and 27th of August, 1813, 
wlien Napoleon defeated the allies under its walls. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Lutzen is a small town of Prussian Saxony, twelve miles southwest from Leipsic. It 
would be imworlhy of notice were it not that its environs have been the scene of two of the 
most memorable conflicts of modern times-,— the first, which occurred Nov. 16th, 1632, and in 
•which the Swedish monarch Gustavus Adolphus fell ; and the second, which took place on 
nearly the same ground. May 2d, 1813, and in which the French, under Napoleon, defeated the 
allies, who were encouraged by the presence of the emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia. 
(Map No. XVI 1.) 



360 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

11. Thus terminated the Swedish period of the "Thirty years' 
war ;" for although the Swedes still determined to support the Pro- 
testant cause in Germany, the animating spirit of the war had fled, 
and they were unable, alone, to accomplish anything effectual. A 
little more than a year after the fall of Gustavus, Wallenstein, being 

accused of treason to his master and the Catholic cause, 

IV, FRENCH ' 

PERIOD OF was assassinated by the command of the emperor Fer- 
THE WAR. (jinand. (Feb. 1634.) We come now to what has been 
called the French period, embracing the closing scenes of this war. 

12. The French minister, Richelieu, had long observed, with se- 
cret satisfaction, the misfortunes of the house of Austria, and of the 
German empire generally ; and now he offered the aid of France to 
the Swedes and the German Protestants, with Holland and the duke 
of Savoy as allies, on the condition of extending the French frontier 
over a portion of the German territory ; and thus the persecutor of 
the Huguenots was leagued with the Protestant powers of Europe 
against its Roman Catholic princes ; — " a clear proof," says a writer 
of French history, " that his principles were politic, not bigoted." 
In a short time French armies were sent into Italy, Germany, and 
the Netherlands ; and from this moment the provinces along the 
Rhine became the chief seat of the war, being pillaged and devas- 
tated as those along the Oder, Elbe, and Weser, had been previously. 

13. From the moment of the active interference of France, the 
power of the German imperialists declined ; and the remainder of 
this " Thirty years' war," which was marked by an unusual degree 
of ferocity on both sides, presents a continuation of gloomy and dis- 
heartening scenes, in which Richelieu had the advantage, not from 
military but diplomatic superiority. Ferdinand died in the year 
1637, without living to witness the termination of the civil and do- 
mestic war in which he had been engaged from the commencement 
of his reign. The French monarch Louis XIIT., and his minister 
Richelieu, the great fomentors and leaders of the war, died in 1642, 
after which the negotiations for peace, which had been begun as early 
as 1636, were the more easily concluded; and in October 1648, the 
treaty of Westphalia^ closed the sad scene of the long and sanguinary 



1. Westphalia is a province embracing all the northern portion of the Prussian dominions 
west of the Weser The "■ peace of Westphalia" was concluded in 1648, at Jlunster and Osna- 
burg, — both then in Westphalia, but the latter now in Hanover. In 1641 preliminaries were 
agreed ui)on at Hamburg : in 1644 actual negotiations were commenced at Osnaburg, between 
(he ambassadors of Austria, the German empire, and Sweden ; and at Munster between those 
of the emperor, France, S])ain, and other powers ; but the articles adopted in both formed one 



Chap. IV.J SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 361 

" Thirty years' war." Peace found the German States in a sadly- 
depressed condition ; the scene that was everywhere presented was a 
wide waste of ruin ; and two-thirds of the population had perished, 
although not so much by the sword as by contagion, plague, famine, 
and the other attendant horrors that follow in the train of war. 

14. The chief articles of the treaty of Westphalia were, 1st, the 
confirmation of the religious peace of Passau, and the consequent 
establishment of the independence of the Protestant German powers : 
2d, the dismemberment of many of the German States for the purpose 
of indemnifying others for their losses ; and the sanction of the com- 
plete sovereignty of each of the German States within its own terri- 
tory : 3d, the extension of the eastern limits of France : 4th, the 
grant, to Sweden, of a considerable territory on the Baltic coast, to- 
gether with a subsidy of five millions of dollars ; and 5th, the ac- 
knowledgment of the independence of the Netherlands by Spain, and 
of the Swiss cantons by the German empire. 

II. English History : — The English Revolution. — While the 
" Thirty years' war" was progressing on the continent, leading to the 
final triumph of religious liberty there, England was convulsed by 
domestic dissensions, which eventually led to a civil war, and the 
temporary overthrow of the monarchy. On the death of 

1 UNION OK 

Elizabeth in 1603, James VI. of Scotland, the son of the England 



AND 



unfortunate Mary, succeeded to the throne of England, 
with the title of James I. England and Scotland were '^^^' 

thus united under one sovereign ; and henceforth the two countries 
received the common designation of " Great Britain." 

2. The character of James, the first English monarch of the Stuart 
family, was not calculated to win the aflfcctious of his u. 

subjects. He was as arbitrary as his predecessors of the james j. 
Tudor race ; and, although excelling in the learning of the times, he 
was signally deficient in all those noble qualities of a sovereign which 
command respect and enforce obedience. His imprudence in sur- 
rounding himself with Scotch favorites irritated the English : the 
Scotch saw with no greater satisfaction his attempts to subject them 
to the worship of the English church : some disappointed Ptoman 
Catholics formed a conspiracy, which was fortunately detected, to 
destroy by gunpowder the king and assembled parliament ; and the 

treaty. AHor terms liad been settled between the parlies at Osuaburg, the ministers repaired 
to Muusler, m here Ihc final treaty waa cuacludod, Oct. 24lh, KilS. {Map No. XVII.) 



362 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

puritans, aiming at farther reforms in the cliurcli and in the state, 
■were committed to prison for even petitioning for some changes, not 
in the least inconsistent with the established hierarchy. James 
strenuously maintained the " Divine right of kings ;" and his entire 
reign was a continued struggle of the house of commons to restore, 
and to fortify, their own liberties, and those of the people. 

3. In 1 G25 James was succeeded on the throne by his son Charles 
ijj. I., then in the twenty -fifth year of his age. Had Charles 

ciiARi.Es I. lived a hundred years earlier, or had not the reformatory 
spirit of the age introduced great and important changes in the 
minds of men on the subject of the royal prerogative and the liber- 
ties of the people, he might have reigned with great popularity; for 
his stern and serious deportment, his disinclination to all licentious- 
ness, and a deep regard for religion, were highly suitable to the char- 
acter of the English people at this period ; but it was tlie misfortune 
of Charles to be destitute of that political prudence which should 
have taught him to yield to the necessities of the times. 

4. The accession of Charles was immediately followed by difficul- 
ties with his parliament, which had no confidence in the king, and 
v/hich he suddenly dissolved, because it refused to vote the supplies 
demanded by him, and showed an inclination to impeach his favorite 
minister Buckingham. The second parliament proceeded with the 
impeachment of the minister, (1626,) and the king retaliated by im- 
prisoning two members of the house on the charge of " words spoken 
by them in derogation of his majesty's honor ;" but the exasperation 
of the Commons soon obtained their release. The third parliament, 
called in 1628, waiving all minor contests, demanded the king's sanc- 
tion to a " Petition of Right," which set forth the rights of the Eng- 
lish people as gaaranteed to them by the Great Charter, and by 
various laws and statutes of the realm. Charles, after many evasions, 
reluctantly signed the Petition ; but in a few months he flagrantly 
violated the obligations it had imposed upon him, and in a fit of in- 
dignation dissolved parliament, resolving never again to call another. 
(1629—39.) 

5. Daring an interval of about ten years, and until the assembling 
of another parliament, no opposition, except such as public opinion 
interposed, was made to the full enjoyment of the unrestrained pre- 
rogatives of the king. Monopolies were now revived to a ruinous 
extent, and the benefits of them were sold to the highest bidder ; ille- 
gal duticii were sustained by servile judges; unheard-of fines were 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 363 

imposed ; and no expedient was omitted that might tend to bring 
money into the royal treasury, and thus enable the king to rale 
"without the aid of parliament. The English clergy, at the head of 
whom was archbishop Laud, one of the chief advisers of the king, 
usurped, by degrees, the civil powers of government ; and the puri- 
tans were so rigorously persecuted that great numbers of them sought 
an asylum in America. In 1637 the attempts of Charles to intro- 
duce the Episcopal form of worship into Scotland, drove the Scotch 
presbyterians to open rebellion ; and a covenant to defend the re- 
ligion, the laws, and the liberties of their country against 
every danger, was immediately framed and subscribed ^^' ^^^^'^'^ 

J o ^ J ^ ^ REBELLION. 

by them. The covenanters, having received arms and 
money from the French minister Richelieu, marched into England ; 
but the English army refused to fight against their brethren, when 
the king, finding himself beset with difficulties on every side, was 
obliged to place himself at the discretion of a fourth parliament. 
(April 1640.) This parliament, not fully compljdng with the king's 
wishes, was abruptly dissolved after a month's session ; but public 
opinion soon compelled the king to summon another, which assembled 
in November of the same year. 

6. The new parliament, called the Long Parliament, from the ex- 
traordinary length of its session, first applied itself dili- ^, ^^^^ 
gently to the correction of abuses and a redress of griev- long par- 
ances. Future parliaments were declared to be triennial ; ^-i-^^^^nt. 
many of the recent acts for taxmg the people were declared illegal ; 
and monopolies of every kind were abolished — tlie king yielding to 
all the demands that were made upon him. Not satisfied with these 
concessions, the commons impeached the earl of Strafford, the king's 
first minister, and favorite general, accusing him of exercising pow- 
ers beyond what the crown had ever lawfully enjoyed, and of a sys- 
tematic hostility to the fundamental laws and constitution of tlie 
realm. By the unconstitutional expedient of a bill of attainder, 
Strafford was declared guilty ; and the king had the weakness to sign 
his condemnation. (1641.) Archbishop Laud was brought to trial 
and executed four years later. The severity of the punishment of 
Strafford, and the magnanimity displayed by him on his trial, have 
half redeemed his forfeit-fame, and misled a generous posterity; but 
he died justly, although the means taken to accomplish his condem- 
nation, by a departure from the ordinary course of judicial proceed' 
ings, established a precedent dangerous to civil liberty. 



SM modern history. [PartIL 

7. With a strong hand parliament now virtually took possession 
of the government ; it declared itself indissoluble without its own 
consent, and continued to encroach on the prerogatives of the king 
until scarcely the shadow of his former power was left him. A re- 
bellion which broke out in Ireland was maliciously charged upon the 
king as its author ; and Charles, to refute the unworthy suspicion, 
intrusted the management of Irish aifairs to parliament, which the 
latter interpreted into a transference to them of the whole military 
power of the kingdom. At length Charles, irritated by a threatening 
remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, caused five members of 
the Commons to be impeached ; and went in person to the House to 
seize them, — a fatal act of indiscretion which was declared a breach 
of privilege of parliament, for which Charles found it necessary to 
atone by a humiliating message. 

8. The difficulties between the king and parliament, and their re- 
spective supporters, at length reached such a crisis, that in January 

1642 the king left London, attended by most of his no- 
wAiT^^ bility, and, repairing to Nottingham,^ erected there the 
royal standard, resolving to stake his claims on the haz- 
ards of war. The adherents of parliament were not unprepared for 
the contest. On the side of the king were ranged most of the no- 
bility of the kingdom, together with the Roman Catholics — all form- 
ing the high church and monarchy party ; while parliament had on 
its side the numerous presbyterian dissenters, and all ultra religious 
and political reformers ; — parliament held the seaports, the fleet, the 
great cities, the capital, and the eastern, middle, and southern 
counties ; while the royalists had the ascendancy in the north and west. 

9. From 1642 until 1647 the war was carried on with various suc- 
sess. In the battle of Edghill,^ fought in October 1642, nothing 
was decided, although five thousand men were left dead on the 
field. The battle of Newbury,^ fought in the following year, (Sept. 

1. J^ottingham is a city one hundred and eight miles north-west from London. It was the 
chief place of rendezvous for the troops of Edward IV. and Richard III. during the war* of 
the Roses. Soon after Charles I. raised his standard here in 1042, the inhabitants, who were 
attached to the republican cause, compelled him to abandon the town and castle to the parlia- 
mentary forces. (_Map No. XVl.) 

2. Edghill is a small town in the county of Warwick, seventy-two miles north-west from 
London. {Map No. XVI.) 

3. jYcwhiry is a town in Berks county, England, on the Kennett, a southern branch of the 
Thames, fifty-three miles south-west from London. The vicinity of this town is celebrated for 
two battles fought during the civil wars between the royalist and parliamentary forces,— Charles 
I. commanding his army in person on both occasions. The first was fought Sept. 20th, 1643 ; 
the second, Oct. 27th, 1614 ; bat neither had any decided result. (Map No. XVI.) 



Chap IV.] SEVENTEENTH CES^TURY. 365 

20th, 1G43,) was equally indecisive ; but it was attended with such 
loss on both sides that it put an end to the campaign, by obliging 
both parties to retire into winter quarters. 

10. Both king and parliament now began to look for assistance to 
other nations ; and while some Irish Roman Catholics ^^^ ^^^^ 
joined the royal army, the parliament entered into a scotch 

" Solemn League and Covenant" with the Scotch people, ^^-^^u^^- 
by which the parties to it bound themselves to aid in the extirpation 
of popery and prelacy, and to promote the establishment of a church 
government conformed to that of Scotland. The Scots, rejoicing at 
the prospect thus held out of extending their mode of religion over 
England, sent an army of twenty thousand men, at the beginning of 

1644, to cooperate with the forces of parliament. 

11. The campaign of 1644 was unfortunate to the royal cause, the 
Irish forces being dispersed by Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the royal- 
ists experiencing a severe defeat at Marston Moor,^ (2d July,) on 
which occasion fifty thousand British combatants engaged in mutual 
slaughter. In Scotland the royal cause was for a time sustained by 
the marquis of Montrose ; but the gallant Scot was at length over- 
whelmed by superior numbers ; and in the following year, June 14th, 

1645, the battle of Naseby,' gained by the parliamentary forces, de- 
cided the contest against the king, although the useless obstinacy of 
the royalists protracted the war till the beginning of 1647.^ After 
the defeat at Naseby, the king, relying on the faith of uncertain 
promises, threw himself into the hands of his Scotch subjects ; but the 
latter, treating him as a prisoner, delivered him up to the commission- 
ers of parliament. 

12. The war was now at an end, but civil and religious dissensions 
raged with greater fury than ever. The late enemies of the king 
were divided into two factions, the Presbyterians and the Independents, 
the former having a majority in the parliament, and the latter form- 
ing a majority of the army. At the head of the Inde- 
pendent party was Oliver Cromwell, a general of the ^cromwell^ 
army, and a man of talent and address, who appears al- 

1. Marston Moor Is a small village of Yorkshire, England, seven miles west of the city of 
York. {Map No. XVI.) 

2. JVasebij is a decayed market town of England, eleven and a-half miles norlh-west from 
London. It is twenty-nine miles north-cast of the locality of the battle of Edghill. The battle 
of Naseby was fought north of the town, in the plain that separated Naseby from Harborough. 
(Map No. XVI.) 

a. "Some of the castles of North Wales, the last that surrendered, held out till April 1647."- 
Hallara's Const. Hist. Note p. 351.) 



366 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ready to have formed the design of obtaining supreme power. By 
his orders tlie king was taken from the commissioners of parliament, 
and placed in the custody of the army. A proposition of parliament 
to disband the army gave Cromwell an opportunity to heighten the 
disaffection of the soldiers ; and, placing himself at their head, he 
entered London, purged parliament of the members obnoxious to 
him, and imprisoned all who disputed his authority. 

13. While parliament was suffering under the military domination 
of Cromwell, a general reaction began to take place in favor of the 
king. The Scots, ashamed of the reproach of having sold their sover- 
eign, now took up arms in his favor ; but Cromwell marched against 
them at the head of an inferior force, and after defeating them, 
entered Scotland, the government of which he settled entirely to his 
satisfaction. Parliament also entered into a negotiation with the 
king, with the view of restoring him to power ; but Cromwell sur- 
rounded the House of Commons with his soldiers, and excluding all 
but his own partisans, caused a vote to be passed declaring it treason 
in a king to levy v>'ar against his parliament. Under the influence 
of Cromwell, proposals were now made for bringing the king to trial ; 

and when the few remaining members of the House of 

IX. TRIAL . . 1 /-I 

AND EXEcu- Lords refused their sanction to the measure, the (Jom- 
TioN OF mons voted that the concurrence of the Lords was un- 
necessary, and that the people were the origin of all just 
power. The Commons then named a court of justice, composed 
mostly of the principal officers of the army, to try the king ; and 
on the charge of having been the cause of all the bloodshed during 
the continuance of the war, he was condemned to death. He was 
allowed only three days to prepare for execution ; and on the SOtli 
of January, 1649, the misguided and unhappy monarch was behead- 
ed, being, at the time, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the 
twenty fourth of his reign. 

14. " The execution of Charles the First," says Hallam, " has been 
mentioned in later ages by a few with unlimited praise, by some 
with faint and ambiguous censure, by most with vehement reproba- 
tion." Viewing the case in all its aspects, we can find no justifica- 
tion for the deed ; for no considerations of public necessity required 
it ; and it was, moreover, the act of a small minority of parliament, 
that had usurped, under the protection of a military force, a power 
which all England declared illegal. Lingard asserts that " the men 
who hurried Charles to the scaffold were a small faction of bold and 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 367 

ambitious spirits, who had the address to guide the passions and fanati- 
cism of their followers, and were enabled, through them, to control the 
real sentiments of the nation." The arbitrary principles of Charles, 
which he had imbibed in the lessons of early youth, — his passionate 
temper, and want of sincerity, indeed rendered him unfit for the 
difficult station of a constitutional king ; but, on the other hand, he 
was deserving of esteem for the correctness of his moral principles ; 
and in private life he would not have been an unamiable man. 

15. A few days after the death of Charles, the monarchical form 
of government was formally abolished ; the House of ^ aboli- 
Lords fell by a vote of the Commons at the same time ; xiox of 
the mere shadow of a parliament, known by the appella- ^<^^'^^chv. 
tion of the Ruiiip^ and supported by an army of fifty thousand men 
under the controlling influence of Oliver Cromwell, took into its 
hands all the powers of government ; and the former title of the 
" English Monarchy" gave place to that of the Commonwealth of 
England. The royalists being still in considerable force in Ireland, 
Cromwell repaired thither with an army, and speedily reduced the 
country to submission ; after which he marched into Scotland at the 
head of sixteen thousand men, and, in the battle of Dunbar, (Sept. 
13th, 1650,) defeated the royal covenanters, who had proclaimed 
Charles II., son of the late king, as their sovereign. In the follow- 
ing year he pursued the Scotch army into England, and completely 
annihilated it in the desperate battle of Worcester.^ (Sept. 13th, 
1651.) 

16. Cromwell had formed the project of a coalition with Holland, 
which was to make the two republics one and indivisible ; ^^ ^^ 
but national antipathies could not be overcome ; and in- with 
stead of the proposed coalition there ensued a fierce and Holland. 
bloody war. Under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, 
the British parliament passed the celebrated navigation act, whicli 
prohibited all nations from importing into England, in their ships, 
any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their 
own country ; — a blow aimed directly at the Dutch, who were the 
general factors and carriers of Europe. Ships were seized and re- 
prisals made ; and in the month of May, 1652, the war broke out by 

], Worcester, the capital of Worcester county, England, is on the eastern bank of the river 
Severn, one hundred miles north-west from London. Worcester is of great, but uncertain, 
antiquity, and is one of the best built towns in the kingdom. It is principally celebrated in 
history for its giving name to the decisive victory obtained there by Cromwell on the 13th 
Sept. 1G51. (Map No. XVI,) 



368 MODERIS- HISTORY. [Part II. 

a casual encounter of the hostile fleets of the two nations, in the 
straits of Dover, — the Dutch admiral Van Tromp commanding the 
one squadron, and the heroic Blake the other. After five hours' 
fighting, the Dutch were defeated, with the loss of one ship sunk and 
another taken. 

1 7. The States-general of Holland were seriously alarmed at the 
prospect of a naval war with England, but the English parliament 
would listen to neither reason nor remonstrance ; and in a short time 
the fleets of the two nations were at sea again. Several actions took 
place with various success, but on the 29th of November a deter- 
mined battle was fought ofi" the Groodwin sands,' between the Dutch 
fleet commanded by Van Tromp and De Ruyter, and the English 
squadron under Blake. Blake was wounded and defeated ; five Eng- 
lish ships were taken, or destroyed ; and night saved the fleet from 
destruction. After this victory, Tromp, in bravado, placed a broom 
at his mast head, to intimate 'that he would sweep the English ships 
from the seas. 

1 8. Great preparations were made in England to remove this dis- 
grace ; and in the month of February following (1653) eighty sail, 
under Blake, assisted by Dean and Monk, met, in the English Chan- 
nel, the Dutch fleet of seventy-six vessels, commanded by Van Tromp, 
who was seconded by De Euyter. Three days of desperate fighting 
ended in the defeat of the Dutch, although Tromp acquired little 
less honor than his rival, by the masterly retreat which he con- 
ducted. In June several battles were fought ; and in July occurred 
the last of these bloody and obstinate conflicts for naval superiority. 
Tromp issued forth once more, determined to conquer or die, and 
soon met the enemy commanded by Monk ; but as he was animat- 
ing his sailors, with his sword drawn, he was shot through the heart 
with a musket ball. This event alone decided the action, and 
the defeat which the Dutch sustained was the most decisive of the 
whole war. Peace was soon concluded on terms advantageous to 
England ; and Cromwell, as protector, signed the treaty of pacifica- 
tion, (April 1654,) after having vainly endeavored to establish a union 
of government, privileges, and interests, between the two republics. 

19. While the war with Holland was progressing, a controversy 

1. The Goodwin sands are famous and very dangerous sand banks, about four niiles from 
the eaistern coast of Kent, a few miles north-east from Dover. They are believed to have once 
formed part of the Kentish land, and to have been submerged about the end of the reign of 
William Rufus. The channel between them and t!ie main land is called " the Downs," a cele- 
brated roadstead for ships, which affords excellent anchorage. {Map No. XVI.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 369 

had arisen between Cromwell and the army on the one hand, and 
the Long Parliament on the other. Each wished to rule supreme, 
but eventually Cromwell forcibly dissolved the parliament, (April 
1653,) and soon after summoned another, composed wholly of mem- 
bers of his own selection. The latter, however, commonly called 
Barebone^s parliament, from the name of one of its leading members, 
at once commenced such a thorough reformation in every department 
of the state, as to alarm Cromwell and bis associates ; and it was re- 
solved that these troublesome legislators should be sent back to their 
respective parishes. A majority of the members voluntarily sur- 
rendered their power into the hands of Cromwell, who put an end 
to the opposition of the rest by turning them out of doors. (Doc. 
12th, 1653.) Four days later a new scheme of govern- ^^^ ,^^^ 
ment, called " The Protectorate," was adopted, by which protecto- 
the supreme powers of state were vested in a lord pro- ^'^^^• 
tector, a council, and a parliament ; and Cromwell was solemnly in- 
stalled for life in the office of " Lord Protector of the commonwealth 
of England, Scotland, and Ireland." 

20. The parliament summoned by Cromwell to meet in September 
of the following year, suspecting that the Protector aimed at kingly 
authority, commenced its session (1654) by an inquiry into the right 
by which he held his power ; upon which Cromwell plainly informed 
the members that he would send them to their homes if they did not 
acknowledge the authority by which they had been assembled. About 
three hundred members signed a paper recognizing Cromwell's scheme 
of government ; while the remainder, amounting to a hundred and 
sixty, resolutely refused compliance, and were excluded from their 
seats ; but although parliament was in some degree purged by the 
operation, it did not exhibit the subserviency which Cromwell had 
hoped to find in it. On the introduction of a bill declaring the Pro- 
tectorate hereditary in the family of Cromwell, a very large majority 
voted against it. The spirit which characterized the remainder of 
the session showed Cromwell that he had not gained the confidence 
of the nation ; and an angry dissolution, early in the following year, 
(Feb. 1655,) increased the general discontent. Soon after, a conspiracy 
of the royalists broke out, but was easily suppressed ; and even in 
the army, among the republicans themselves, several ofiicers allowed 
their fidelity to be corrupted, and took a share in counsels that were 
intended to restore the commonwealth to its original vigor and puri- 
ty. During the same year (1655), a war with Spain broke out ; the 

24 



iS#0 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

island of Jamaica, in the West Indies, was conquered ; the treasure- 
ships of the Spaniards were captured on their passage to Europe ; 
and some naval victories were obtained. 

21. In his civil and domestic administration, which was conducted 
with ability, but without any regular plan, Cromwell displayed a 
general regard for justice and clemency; and irregularities were 
never sanctioned, unless the necessity of thus sustaining his usurped 
authority seemed to require it. Such indeed were the order and 
tranquillity which he preserved — such his skilful management of per- 
sons and parties, and such, moreover, the change in the feelings of 
many of the Independents themselves, since the death of the late 
monarch, that in the parliament of 1656 a motion was made, and 
carried by a considerable majority, for investing the Protector with 
the dignity of king. Although exceedingly desirous to accept the 
proffered honor, he saw that the army, composed mostly of stern and 
inflexible republicans, could never be reconciled to a measure that 
implied an open contradiction of all their past professions, and an 
abandonment of their principles ; and he was at last obliged to re- 
fuse that crown which had been solemnly proffered to him by the 
representatives of the nation. 

22. After this event, the domestic affairs of the country kept 
Cromwell in perpetual uneasiness. The royalists renewed their con- 
spiracies against him ; and a majority in parliament now opposed all 
his favorite measures ; a mutiny of the army was apprehended ; and 
even the daughters of the Protector became estranged from him. Over- 
whelmed with difficulties, possessing the confidence of no party, hav- 
ing lost all composure of mind, and in constant dread of assassina- 
tion, his health gradually declined, and he expired on the 13th of 
September, 1658, the anniversary of his great victories, and a day 
which he had always considered the most fortunate for him. 

23. On the death of Cromwell, his eldest son, Hichard, succeeded 
him in the protectoriite, in accordance, as was supposed, with the 
dying wish of his father, and with the approbation of the council. 
But E-ichard, being of a quiet, unambitious temper, and alarmed at 
the dangers by which he was surrounded, soon signed his own abdica- 
tion, and retired to private life. A state of anarchy followed, and 

xiii. RESTo- contending factions, in the army and the parliament, for 

RATION OF a time filled the country with bloody dissensions, when 

MONARCHY, (^(.^^(jj.al Monk, who commanded the army in Scotland, 

marched into Enfirland and declared in favor of the restoration of 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 371 

royalty. This declaration, freeing the nation from the state of suspense 
in which it had long been held, was received with almost universal 
joy : the House of Lords hastened to reinstate itself in its ancient 
authority; and on the 18tli of May, 1660, Charles the Second, son 
of the late king, was proclaimed sovereign of England, by the united 
acclamations of the army, the people, and the two houses of par- 
liament. 

24. The accession of Charles II. to the throne of his ancestors 
was at first hailed as the harbinger of real liberty, and the promise 
of a firm and tranquil government, although no terms were required 
of him for the security of the people against his abuse of their con- 
fidence. As he possessed a handsome person, and was open and 
aifable in his manners, and engaging in conversation, the first im- 
pressions produced by him were favorable ; but he was soon found 
to be excessively indolent, profligate, and worthless, and to entertain 
notions as arbitrary as those which had distinguished the reign of his 
father. The parliament, called in 1661, composed mostly of men 
who had fought for royalty and the church, gave back to the crown 
its ancient prerogatives, of which the Long Parliament had despoiled 
it — endeavored to enforce the doctrine of passive obedience, by com- 
pelling all officers of trust to swear that they held resistance to the 
king's authority to be in all cases unlawful, — and passed an act of 
religious uniformity, by which two thousand Presbyterian ministers 
were deprived of their livings, and the gaols filled with a crowd of 
dissenters. Episcopacy was established by law ; and the church, 
grateful for the protection which she received from the government, 
made the doctrine of non-resistance her favorite theme, which slie 
taught without any qualification, and followed out to all its extreme 
consequences. 

25. While these changes were in progress, the manners and morals 
of the nation were sinking into an excess of profligacy, encouraged 
by the dissolute conduct of the king in private life. Under the 
austere rule of the puritans, vice and immorality were sternly re- 
pressed ; but when the check was withdrawn, they broke forth with 
ungovernable violence. The cavaliers, as the partisans of the late 
king were called, in general affected a profligacy of manners, as their 
distinction from the fanatical and canting party, as they denominated 
the puritans ; the prevailing immorality pervaded all ranks and pro- 
fessions ; the philosophy and poetry of the times pandered to the 
general licentiousness ; and the public revenues \yerc wasted on tlio 



372 MODERN HISTORY., [Part II. 

vilest associates of the king's debauchery. The court of Charles 
was a school of vice, ia which the restraints of decency were laughed 
to scorn ; and at no other period of English history were the immo- 
ralities of licentiousness practiced with more ostenation, or with less 
iisgrace, 

26. While Charles was losing the favor of all parties and classes 
by his neglect of public business, and his wasteful profligacy, the 
general discontent was heightened by his marriage with Catherine, a 
Portuguese princess, and by the sale of Dunkirk^ to France ; but still 
greater clamors arose, when, in 1 664, the king provoked a war with Hol- 
land, by sending out a squadron which seized the Dutch settlements 
on the coast of Africa, and the Cape Verde Islands. The House of 
Commons readily voted supj)lies to carry on the war with vigor ; but 
such was the extravagance, dishonesty, and incapacity of those to 
whom Charles had intrusted its management, that, after a few inde- 
cisive naval battles, it was found necessary to abandon all thoughts 
of offensive war ; and even then the sailors mutinied in the ports from 
actual hunger, and a Dutch fleet, sailing up the Thames, burned the 
ships at Chatham, ■■' on the very day when the king was feasting with 
the ladies of his seraglio. The capital was threatened with the 
miseries of a blockade, and for the first time the roar of foreign guns 
was heard by the citizens of London. 

27, In the summer of 1665, while the ignominious war with Hol- 
land was raging, the plague visited England, but was confined prin- 
cipally to London, where its frightful raA^ages surpassed in horror 
anything that had ever been known in the island. But few recovered 
from the disease, and death followed within two or three days, and 
sometimes within a few hours, from the first symptoms. During one 
week in September more than ten thousand died ; and the whole 
number of victims was more than a hundred thousand. In the fol- 
lowing year a fire, such as had not been known in Europe since the 

1. Dunkirk, the most northern seaport of France, ia situated on the straits of Dover, in the 
former province of Frencli Fhinders, opposite, and forty-seven miles east from, the English 
town of Dover. Dunkirk is said to have been founded by Baldwin, count of Flanders, in 
060 : in 1388 it was burned by the English ; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it 
alternately belonged to Ibem and to the Spaniards and French. Charles II. sold it to Louis 
XIV. for two hundred thousand pounds sterling. Louis, aware of its importance, fortified it at 
great expense, but v/as compelled, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, to consent to the demoli- 
tion of its fortifications, and even to the shutting up of its port. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. Chatham is a celebrated naval and military depot, on the river Medway, twenty-eight 
miles south-east from London. It was anciently called Cetcham, or the village of cottages. 
Many Roman remains have been found in ils vicinity. It is this town which gives the title of 
earl to the Pitt family. (Map No. XVI. 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 373 

conflagration of Rome under Nero, laid in ruins two-thirds of tlio 
metropolis, — consumiag more than thirteen thousand dwellings, and 
leaving destitute two hundred thousand people. 

28. After the war with Holland had continued two years, Charles 
was forced, by the voice of parliament and the bad success of his 
arms, to conclude the treaty of Breda,' (July 1667,) by which the 
Dutch possessions of New Netherlands,^ in America, were confirmed 
to England, while the latter surrendered to France Acadia and Nova 
Scotia.^ In 1672, however, Charles was induced by the French 
monarch, Louis XIV., to join him in another war against the Dutch. 
The combined armies of the two kingdoms soon reduced the republic 
to the brink of destruction ; but the prince of Orange,'* being pro- 
moted to the chief command of the Dutch forces, soon roused the 
courage of his dismayed countrymen : the dykes were opened, laying 
the whole country, except the cities, under water ; and the invaders 
were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate re- 
treat. At length, in 1674, Charles was compelled, by the discon- 
tents of his people and parliament, who were opposed to the war, to 
conclude a separate treaty of peace with Holland. France continued 
the war, but Holland was now aided by- Spain and Sweden, while in 1676 
the marriage of the prince of Orange with the Lady Mary, daughter 
of the duke of York, the brother of Charles, induced England to 
espouse the cause of the republic, and led to the treaty of Nimeguen'' 

1. Breda is a strongly-fortified town of Holland— province of North Brabant, on the river 
Merk, thirty miles north-east from Antwerp. Breda is a well-built town, entirely surrounded 
by a marsh that may be laid under water. It was taken from the Spaniards by prince Maurice 
in 1590, by means of a stratagem suggested by the master of a boat who sometimes supplied 
the garrison with fuel. W^ith singular address he contrived to introduce into the town, under 
a cargo of turf, seventy chosen soldiers, who, having attacked the garrison in the night, opened 
the gates to their comrades. It was retaken by the Spaniards under the marquis Spinola in 
1625, but was finally ceded to Holland by the treaty of Weslphalia in 1048. {Map No. XV.) 

2. JSTeiD JSTctherlaiids, the present New York, had been conquered by the English in 1GG4, 
while England and Holland were at peace ; and the treaty of Breda confirmed England in the 
possession of the country. 

3. The French possessions in America, embracing New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the ad- 
jacent islands, were at first called Acadia. A fleet sent out by Cromwell in 1654 soon reduced 
Acadia, but it was restored by the treaty of Breda in 1667. 

4. The family of Orange derive their title from the little principality of Orange, twelve miles 
in length and nine in breadth, of which the city of Orange, a town of south-eastern France, was 
the capital. Orange, known to the Romans by the name of Arausio, is situated on the small 
river Meyne, five miles east of the Rhone, and twelve miles north of Avignon. From the 
eleventh to the sixteenth century Orange had its own princes. In 1531 it passed, by marriage, 
to the count of Nassau. It continued in this family till the death, in 1702, of W^illiam Henry of 
Nassau-Orange (William HI. of England), when the succession became the subject of a long 
contest ; and it was not till the peace of TJtrecht in 1715 that this little territory was finally 
ceded to France. (Map No. XIII.) 

5. mmegucn, or J^ymegen, is a town of Holland, province of Guelderland, on the south side 



374 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

in 1678, by wliicL tlic Dutch provinces obtained honorable and ad- 
vantageous terms. 

29. Although CMiarles professed adherence to the principles of the 
Eeformation, yet his great and secret designs were the establishment 
of papacy, and arbitrary power, in England. To enable him to ac 
complish these objects, he actually received, from the king of France, 
a secret pension of two hundred thousand pounds per annum, for 
which he stipulated, in return, to employ the whole strength of Eng- 
land, by land and sea, in support of the claims of Louis to the vast 
monarchy of Spain. But the popularity with which Charles had 
commenced his reign had long been expended ; there was a prevail- 
ing discontent among the people, — an anxiety for public liberty, 
which was thought to be endangered, — and a general hatred of the 
Roman Catholic Religion, which was increased by the circumstance 
that the king's brother, and heir presumptive, was known to be a 
bigoted Roman Catholic. Parliament became intractable, and suc- 
cessfully oj^posed many of the favorite measures of the king ; and at 
length in 1678 a pretended Popish Plot for the massacre of the Pro- 
testants threw the whole nation into a blaze. One Titus Gates, an 
infamous impostor, was the discoverer of this pretended plot ; and 
in the midst of the ferment which it occasioned, many innocent 
Catholics lost their lives. At a later period, however, a regular pro- 
ject for raising the nation in arms against the government was de- 
tected; and the leaders, among whom were Lord Russell and Alger- 
non Sidney, being unjustly accused of particij^ation in the Rye House 
plot for the assassination of the king, were beheaded, iia defiance of 
law and justice. (1683.) From this time until his death Charles 
ruled with almost absolute power, without the aid of a parliament. 
He died suddenly in 1685. His brother, the duke of York, imme- 
diately succeeded to the throne, with the title of James II. 

30. The reign of James was short and inglorious, distinguished 
XIV. by nothing but a series of absurd efforts to render him- 

jAMEs II. ggif independent of parliament, and to establish the 
Roman Catholic religion in England, although he at first made the 
strongest professions of a resolution to maintain the established gov- 
ernment, both in church and state. It soon became evident that a 
crisis was approaching, and that the great conflict between the pre- 

of the Waal, fifty-three miles south-east from Amsterdam . It is known in history from tho 
treaty concluded there August lOlh, 1678, and from its capture by the French on the 8th of 
Sept. 1794, after a severe action in which the allien wore defcatec]. {M.tp No. XV.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 375 

rogatives of the crown and the privileges of parliament was about 
to be brought to a final issue. 

31. In the first exercise of his authority James showed the insin- 
cerity of his professions by levying taxes without the authority of 
parliament : in violation of the laws, and in contempt of the national 
feeling, he went openly to mass : he established a court of ecclesias- 
tical commission with unlimited power over the Episcopal church : 
he suspended the penal laws, by which a conformity had been re- 
quired to the established church ; and although any communication 
with the pope had been declared treason, he sent an embassy to 
Rome, and in return received a nuncio from his Holiness, and with 
much ceremony gave him a public and solemn reception at Windsor.^ 
In this open manner the king attacked the principles and prejudices 
of his Protestant subjects, foolishly confident of his ability to rees- 
tablish the Roman Catholic religion, although the Roman Catholics 
in England did not comprise, at this time, the one-hundredth part 
of the nation. 

32. An important event of this reign was the rebellion of the duke 
of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., who hoped, through the 
growing discontents of the people at the tyranny of James, to gain 
possession of the throne ; but after some partial successes he was de- 
feated, made prisoner, and beheaded. After the rebellion had been 
suppressed, many of the unfortunate prisoners were hung by the 
king's officers, without any form of trial ; and when, after some in- 
terval, the inhuman Jeifries was sent to preside in the courts before 
which the prisoners were arraigned, the rigors of law were made to 
equal, if not to exceed, the ravages of military tyranny. The juries 
were so awed by the menaces of the judge that they gave their ver- 
dict as he dictated, with precipitation : neither age, sex, nor station, 
was spared ; the innocent were often involved with the guilty ; and 
the king himself applauded tlie conduct of Jeffries, whom he after 
wards rewarded for his services with a peerage, and invested with the 
dignity of chancellor. 

]. fVindsor is a small town on the south side of the Thames, twenty miles south-west Irom 
Loiulon. It is celebrated for Windsor castle, the principal country seat of the sovereigns of 
England, and one of the most magnificent royal residences in Europe. The castle, placed on 
the summit of a lofty eminence rising ajljrnptly from the river, appears to have been founded 
by William the Conqueror, and it has been enlarged or embellished by most of his successors. 
On the north and east sides of the castle is the Little Park, a fine expanse of lawn, comprising 
nearly five hundred acres : on the south side is the Great Park, comprising three thousand 
eiglit hundred acres ; while near by is Windsor forest, a tract flfty-six miles in circumference, 
laid out by William the Conqueror for the purpose of hunting. {Map No. XVI.) 



376 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

33. As the king evinced, in all liis measures, a settled purpose of 
invading every branch of the constitution, many of the nobility and 
great men of the kingdom, foreseeing no peaceable redress of their 
grievances, finally sent an in\'itation to William, prince of Orange, 
the stadtholder of the United Dutch Provinces, who had married the 
king's eldest daughter, and requested him to come over and aid them 

bv his arms, in the recovery of their laws and liberties. 

XV. REVOLU- J ^ J 

TioN OF About the middle of November, 1688, William landed 
1688. -jj England at the head of an army of fourteen thousand 
men, and was everywhere received with the highest favor. James 
was abandoned by the army and the people, and even by his own 
children ; and in a moment of despair he formed \}iiQ, resolution of 
leaving the kingdom, and soon after found means to escape privately 
to France. These events are usually denominated " the Revolution 
of 1688." 

34. In a convention-parliament which met soon after the flight of 
James, it was declared that the king's withdrawal was an abdication 
of the government, and that the throne was thereby vacant ; and af- 
ter a variety of propositions, a bill was passed, settling the crown on 
William and Mary, the prince and princess of Orange ; the success- 
ion to the princess Anne, the next eldest daughter of the late king, 
and to her posterity after that of the princess of Orange. To this 
settlement of the crown a declaration of rights was annexed, by 
which the subjects of controversy that had existed for many years, 
and particularly during the last four reigns, between the king and 
the people, were finally determined ; and the royal prerogative was 
more narrowly circumscribed, and more exactly defined, than in any 
former period of English history. 

35. While the accession of William and Mary was peaceably ac- 
quiesced in by the English people, some of the Highland clans of 
Scotland, and the Catholics of Ireland, testified their adherence to 
the late king by taking up arms in his favor. The former gained the 
battle of Killiecranlde^ in the summer of 1689; but the death of 
their leader, the viscount Dundee, who fell in the moment of victory, 
ended all the hopes of James in Scotland. In the meantime Louis 
XIV. of France openly espoused the cause of the fallen monarch, and 

1. Killiecrankie is a celebrated pass, half a mile in length, through the Grampian hills in 
Scotland, in the county of Perth, sixty miles northwest from Edinburgh. In the buttle of 1(589, 
fought at the northern extremity of this pass, INIackay commanded the revolutionary forces, 
and the famous Graham of Claverhou^e, Viscount Dundee, the troops of James II. {Map 
No. XVU 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 377 

furnished him with a fleet, with which, in the spring of 1689, James 
landed in Ireland, where a bloody war raged until the autumn of 
1691, when the whole country was again subjected to the power of 
England. The course taken by the French monarch led to a decla- 
ration of war against France in May 1689. The war thus com- 
menced involved, in its progress, most of the continental powers, 
nearly all of which were united in a confederacy with William for 
the purpose of putting a stop to the encroachments of Louis. An 
account of this war will be more properly given in connection with 
the history of France, whic-h country, under the influence of the 
genius and ambition of Louis XIV., acquires, in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, a commanding importance in the history of 
Europe. King William died in the spring of 1 702, having retained, 
until his death, the chief direction of the aff'airs of Holland, under 
the title of stadth older ; thus presenting the singular spectacle of a mon 
archy and a republic at the same time governed by the same individual. 

III. French History: — Wars of Louis XIV. — 1. During the 
administration of Cardinal Richelieu, (1624 — 42,) the 
able mmister oi the leeble Louis AIIL, i^ ranee was tration of 
ruled with a rod of iron. '^ He made," says Montes- cardinal 
queu, " his sovereign play the second part in the mon- 
archy, and the first in Europe ; he degraded the king, but he rendered 
the reig-n illustrious." He humbled the nobility, the Huguenots, and 
the house of Austria ; but he also encouraged literature and the arts, 
and promoted commerce, which had been ruined by two centuries of 
domestic war. He freed France from a state of anarchy, but he es- 
tablished in its place a pure despotism. No minister was ever more 
successful in carrying out his plans than Richelieu ; but his successes 
were bought at the expense of every virtue ; and as a man he merits 
execration. He died in December 1642, and Louis survived him but 
a few months, leaving, as his successor, his son Louis, then a child 
of only six years of age. 

2. During the minority of Louis XIV., Cardinal Mazarin, an 
Italian, ruled the kingdom as prime minister, under the ^^^ mazarixVs 
regency of the queen mother, Anne of Austria. Under adminis- 
Mazarin was concluded the treaty of Westphalia, which ^ration. 
terminated the thirty years' war ; and during the early part of his 
administration occurred the civil war of the Fro)ide,^ in which the 

2. "War of the Fronde'''— so called because the first outbreak in Paris was commenced by 



af« MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

magistracy of Paris, supported by the citizens, rose against tlie arbi- 
trary powers of the government, and j)roinulgated a j)lan for the ref- 
ormation of abuses ; but when the young nobility affected to abet 
and adopt its princij)les, they perverted the cause of freedom to their 
own selfish interests ; and the vain struggle for constitutional liberty 
degenerated into the most ridiculous of rebellions. 

3. Though the treaty of Westphalia (1648) had terminated the 
" Thirty years' war" among the parties originally engaged in it,'^' 
yet France and Spain still continued the contest in w^hich they had 
at first only a secondary share. The civil disturbances of the Fronde^ 
occurring at this time, greatly favored the SjDaniards, who recovered, 
principally on the borders of the Low Countries, many places which 
they had previously lost to the French ; and by means of the great 
military talents of Conde, a French general who had been exiled 
during the late troubles, and who now fought on the side of the 
Spaniards, the latter hoped to bring the war to a triumphant issue. 
The French, however, found in marshal Turenne a general who was 
more than a rival for Conde : he defeated the latter in the siege of 
Arras,^ and compelled the Spaniards to retreat, but was himself 
compelled to abandon Yalenciennes."'^ At this time Mazarin, by 
flattering the passions of Cromwell, induced England to take part in 
the contest : six thousand English joined the French army in Flan- 
ders;^ and Dunkirk, taken from the Spaniards, was given to England, 
according to treaty, as a reward for her assistance. 

4. But France, though victorious, was anxious for peace, as the 
finances of the kingdom were in disorder, and the death of Cromwell 
had rendered the alliance with England of little benefit ; wdiile 

troops of Tirchins with their slings— frondc being the French word for " a sling." In derision 
the insurgents were first called fi-ondeurs^ or " slingers," — an insinuation that their force was 
trifling, and their aim merely mischief. 

1. Jlrras is a city of northern France, in the former province of Artois, thirty-three miles 
south-east from Agincourt. Robespierre, of infamous memory, and Damiens, the assassin of 
Louis XV., were natives of Arras. 

2. Valenciennes is a town of north-eastern France, on the Scheldt, (skelt), near the Belgian 
frontier. {Map No. XV.) 

3. In 8G3 Charles the Bold established the county of Flanders, which extended from the 
straits of Dover nearly to the mouths of the Scheldt. At different times Flanders fell under 
the dominion of Bur' gundy, Spain, &c. Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century it 
was divided into French, Austrian, and Dutch Flanders. French Flanders comprised the French 
province of that name. (See Map No. XIII.) Adjoining this territory, on the east, was Aus- 
trian Flanders; and adjoining the latter, on the east, was Dutch Flanders. Dutch and Auslrirm 
Flanders are now comprised in East and West Flanders, the two north-western provinces of 
Belgium (see Map No. XV.,) although the Dutch portion embraced only a small part of East 
Flanders. 

a. See p. 314. 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 379 

Spain, engaged in war with the Netherlands and Portugal, gladly 
acceded to the offers of reconciliation with her most powerful enemy. 
On the banks of the Bidassoa^ the treaty, usually known as the treaty 
of the Pyrenees, was concluded, (Nov. 1659,) and the infatuated 
Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip of Spain, was given in 
marriage to the French monarch ; although, to prevent the possible 
union of two such powerful kingdoms, Louis was compelled to re- 
nounce all claim to the Spanish crown, either for himself or his suc- 
cessors. By the treaty of the Pyrenees, Conde was pardoned and 
again received into favor ; the limits of France were extended on the 
English Channel to Gravelines ;^ while on the south-west the Pyrenees 
became its boundary, by the acquisition of Boussillon.^ Thus France 
assumed almost its present form ; its subsequent acquisitions being 
Franche-Comte* and French Flanders. 

5. About a year after the conclusion of the treaty of the Pyrenees, 
Mazarin died, (March 1661,) and Louis, summoning his council, and ex 
pressing his determination to take the government wholly 
into his own hands, strictly commanded the chancellor, "^" 

"^ , LOUIS XIV. 

and secretaries of state, to sign no paper but at his ex- 
press bidding. To the stern, economical, and orderly Colbert, he in- 
trusted the management of the treasury ; and in a brief period the 
purchase of Dunkirk from England, the establishment of numerous 
manufactures, the building of the Louvre,^ the Livalidcs," and the 

1. The Bidassoa, which rises In the Spanish territory, and falls into tho Bay of Biscay, forms, 
in the latter part of its course, the boundary between France and Spain. A sliort distance 
from its mouth it forms the small Isle of the Pheasants, where the peace of the Pyrenees was 
concluded in 1659. The Bidassoa was the scene of important operations in the peninsular war 
of 1813. 

2. Gravelines is a small town twelve miles east from Calais. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Roussillon, a province of France before the French Revolution, was bounded on the south 
and east by the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. The counts of Roussillon governed this dis- 
trict for a long period. The last count bequeathed it to Alphonso of Aragon in U78. In 1463 
it was ceded to Louis XI. of France, but in 1493 it was restored to the kings of Aragon, and in 
1659 was finally surrendered to France by the treaty of the Pyrenees. (Map No. XIII.) 

4. Franche-Comtc, called also Upper Bar' gundij, had Bur' gundy Proper, or Lower Bur'- 
gundy, on the south and west. Besancon was its capital. In the division of the States of tlie 
emperor Maximilian, I'>anchc-Corat6 fell to Spain ; but Louis XIV. conquered it in 1G74, and 
it was ceded to France by the peace of Nimeguen, in 1678. {Map No. XIII.) 

5. The palace of the Lnuvre^ one of the finest regal structures in Europe, has not been the 
residence of a French monarch since the minority of Louis XV., and is now converted into a 
national museum and picture gallery. The pictures are deposited on the first floor of a splendid 
range of rooms above a quarter of a mile in length, and facing the river. 

6. The Hotel des Invalidcs (in'-va-leed) is a hospital intended for the support of disabled 
officers and soldiers who have been in active service upwards of thirty years. It covers a 
space of nearly seven acres, and is one of the grandest national institutions of Europe. 



S80 MODERN. HISTORY. [Part II. 

palace of Versailles,* and tlie corameneement of tlie canal of Langue- 
doc,'^ attested the miracles that mere economy can work in finance. 

6. Arousing himself from the thraldom of love intrigues, Louis 
now began to awake to projects of ambition. The splendor of his 
court dazzled the nobility : his personal qualities won him the aifection 
of his people : he breathed a new spirit into the administration ; and 
foreign potentates, like the proud nobles of his court, seemed to 
quail before his power. He repudiated the stipulations of the 
treaty of the PjTcnees, on tlie ground that the dower which he was 
to receive with his wife had not been paid; and on the death of his 
father-in-law, Philip IV. of Spain, by which event the crown devolved 
upon a sickly infant, by a second marriage, he laid immediate claim 
to the Spanish Netherlands in right of his wife, — alleging, in sup- 
port of the claim, an ancient custom of the province of Brabant,^ by 
which females of a first marriage were to inherit in preference to sons 
of a second. The French monarch, after securing the neutrality of 
Austria, poured his legions over the Belgian frontier, and with great 
rapidity reduced most of the fortresses as far as the Scheldt. The 
captured towns were immediately fortified by the celebrated engineer 
Vauban, and garrisoned by the best troops of France. (1667-8.) 

7. These successes encouraged Louis to turn his arms towards 
another quarter ; and Franche-Comte, a part of the old Bur' gundy, 
but still retained by the Spaniards, was conquered before Spain was 
aware of the danger. (Feb. 1668.) The Hollanders, alarmed at 
the approach of the French, became reconciled to Spain ; and a 
Triple Alliance was formed between Holland, Sv/eden, and England, 
three Protestant powers, for the purpose of defending Catholic 

1. Versailles 13 nine miles soulh-wcst from Paris. The palnce of Versailles, of prodigious 
size and magnificence, lias not been occupied i:)y Ihe court since 1789. It was much out of re- 
pair, when Louis Pliilipj)e transformed it into what may be called a national museum, intended 
lo illustrate the history of France, and to exhibit the progress of the country iu arts, arms, and 
civilization. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. The canal of //OT/o-Hgf/wr, commencing at Celte, fourteen miles souLh-west of Montpelier, 
and extendino: to Toulouse on the Garonne, a distance of one hundred and forty-eight miles, 
thus connects Ihe Mediterranean and the Atlantic. (JMap No. XIII.) 

3. Brahavt^ first erected into a duchy in the seventh century, included the Dutch province of 
North Brabant, and the Belgic provinces of South Brabant and Antwerp. Having passed, by 
marriage, into the possession of the house of Bur' gundy, it afterwards descended to Ciiarles V. 
In the seventeenth century tlie republic of Holland took possession of the northern part, (now 
North Br.ibant,) which was thence called Dutch Brabant, while the remainder was known as 
Austrian Brabant. Both repeatedly fell into the hands of the French, but in 181.5 were in- 
cluded in the kingdom of the Netherlands. Since the revolution of 1830 North Brabant has 
been included in Holland, and the other provinces, or Austrian Brabant, iu Belgium. {Map 
No. XV.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 381 

Spain against Catholic France. Louis receded before this menacing 
league, and by restoring Franche-Comte, which he knew could at any 
time easily be regained, while he retained most of his Flemish con- 
quests, concluded the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,' (1668,) which mere- 
ly suspended the war until the French king was better prepared to 
carry it on with success. 

8. The great object of Louis was now revenge against Holland, 
the originator of the triple alliance. Knowing the profligate habits 
of Charles II., he purchased with ready money the alliance of 
England ; he also bought the neutrality of Sweden, and the neigh- 
boring princes of Grermany, while in the meantime he created a navy 
of a hundred vessels, built five naval arsenals, and increased his army 
to a hundred thousand men. 

9. For the first time the bayonet, so terrible a weapon in French 
hands, was affixed to the end of the musket ; and the hundred thou- 
sand soldiers who composed the French army, armed as the French 
were, might well strike terror into the rulers of Holland, who could 
raise, at most, an army of only thirty thousand men. 

10. In the spring of 1672 the French armies, avoiding the Spanish 
Netherlands, passed through the country betwixt the Mouse and the 
Khine,^ crossed the latter river in June, and rapidly advanced to 
within a few leagues of Amsterdam,^ when the Dutch, by opening the 
dykes, let in the sea and saved the metropolis. But even Amster- 
dam meditated submission ; one project of the inhabitants being to 
embark, like the Athenians, on board their fleet, sail for their East 
India settlements, and abandon their country to the modern Xerxes 
who had come to destroy their liberties. While Amsterdam was 
secure for the present behind its rampart of waters, and the French 
armies were wintering triumphantly in the conquered provinces, the 
envoys of the Dutch roused Europe against the ambition of Louis. 

1. Aix-la-Chnpclle (a-lah-shahpel) is an old and well-built city of the Prussian States, near 
the eastern confines of Belgium, eighty miles east of Brussels. It was the favorite residence 
of Charlemagne, and for some time the capital of his empire. Two celebrated treaties have 
been concluded in this city ; the first, May 2d, 1668, between France and Spain ; and the 
second, Oct. 18th, 1748, between the different powers engaged in the wars of the Austrian suc- 
cession. Here also was held the celebrated congress of the allied powers in 18J8. {.Map No. 
XVI [.) 

2. The Mouse and the Rhine ; — see Map No. XV. 

3. .Amsterdam, a famous maritime and commercial city of Holland, is on the south bank of the 
Y,, an inlet or arm of the Zuyder Zee. Being situated in a marsh, its buildings are all founded 
on piles, driven from forty to fifty feet in a soil consisting of alluvial deposits, peat, clay, and 
Band. The State-House, a magnificent building of freestone, is erected on a foundation of 
thirteen thousand six hundred and fifty-nine piles. Numerous canals divide the city into 
about a hundred islands. (.1/;/;^ No, XV.) 



382 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Prince William of Orange, a general of only twenty-two years of 
age, being placed at the head of the Republic, soon tsoicceeded in de- 
taching England from the unnatural alliance which she had formed 
with her ancient enemy : Spain and Austria, awaking to their interests, 
prepared to send troops to aid the Dutch; and by 1674 nearly all 
Europe was leagued against the French monarch. 

1 1 . Louis was now obliged to abandon Holland ; but, in the Span- 
ish Netherlands, his great generals, Conde and Turenne, turning 
upon the allied armies, for a while kept all Europe at bay. In the 
following year, (1675,) Turenne was killed by a cannon ball as he 
was about to enter Germany ; and although Louis created six new 
marshals, the whole were not equal to the one he had lost. Soon 
after, Conde retired, disabled by age and infirmity ; and with the 
loss of her great generals the valor of France, on the land, for a 
while slumbered. But at this time there appeared a seaman of 
talent and heroism, named Duquesne, who, being sent to succor 
Messina, which had revolted against Spain, defeated the fleet of Do 
Ruyter in a terrible naval battle within sight of Mount ^tna. The 
Dutch admiral himself was among the slain. In the second battle, 
in 1677, Duquesne almost annihilated the Dutch fleet. Under a 
grateful monarch this man might have become high admiral of 
France ; but Louis was growing bigoted with his years, and his faith- 
ful servant was reproached for being a Protestant. " When I fought 
for your majesty," replied the blunt sailor, " I never thought of 
what might be your religion." His son, driven into exile for ad- 
hering to the reformed faith, carried away with him the bones of his 
father, determined not to leave them in an ungrateful countr}^ 

12. In the meantime conferences took place at Nimeguen : the 
allies wished peace ; and France and Holland, the original parties in 
the war, were equally exhausted. At length, in August 1678, the 
treaty was signed, Louis retaining most of his conquests in the Spanish 
Netherlands, — all French Flanders in fact, as well as Franche-Comte. 
Spain, from whom these possessions were obtained, assented to tlie 
treaty ; for the imbecile monarch of that country knew not what 
towns belonged to him, nor where was the frontier line of what he 
still retained of the Spanish Netherlands. "Here may be seen," 
says Voltaire, " how little do events correspond to projects. Hol- 
land, against which the war had been undertaken, and which had 
nearly perished, lost nothing, nay, even gained a barrier ; while the 



Chap. IV-l SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 383 

other powers, that had armed to defend and guarantee her indepen- 
dence, all lost somethmg." 

13. The years which followed the peace of Nimeguon were the 
most prosperous for France ; and formed the zenith of the reign of 
Louis XIV. All Europe had been armed against him, and success 
had more or less crowned all his enterprises. He assumed to him- 
self the title of Great ; and one of his dukes even kept a burning 
lamp before the statue of the monarch, as before an altar ; the least 
insult offered by foreign courts to his representatives, or neglect of 
etiquette, was sure to bring down signal vengeance. In the years 
1682 and 1683 Algiers was bombarded, then a new mode of warfare : 
in 1684 Grenoa experienced the same fate because it refused to allow 
the French monarch to establish a depot within its territory. Even 
the pope was humbled before the " Grand Monarch ;" some of the 
Gi-erman princes were expelled from their territories ; and in time 
of peace French maurauding parties devastated the Spanish provinces. 
Louis increased his navy to two hundred and thirty vessels ; and 
toward the end of his reign his armies amounted to four hundred 
and fifty thousand men. But the greatest glories of the reign of 
Louis were those connected with literature and the arts. Men of 
letters now, for the first time, began to exert a great influence on the 
mind of the French nation ; and the familiar names of Moliere, Ra- 
cine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Massillou, and Fenelon, adorned 
the age of Louis, and shed on the land the brightness of their fame. 
In the next century the writings of these men, and of their success- 
ors, determined the fate of the great monarchy which Louis had built 
up. 

14. The queen of France being dead, towards the year 1685 Louis 
secretly married Madame Scarron, the widow of the celebrated 
comic writer, on whom he conferred the title of Madame De Main- 
tenon. This woman, who had been educated a Calvinist, and had 
abjured her religion, would have made all Protestants do the same ; 
and it was chiefly through her influence, and that of the royal con- 
fessor La Chaise, that the king, naturally bigoted, became a bitter 
persecutor of his Protestant subjects. In 1 685 he revoked the edict 
of Nantes, which had given tolerance to all religions, forbade all ex- 
ercise of the Protestant worship, and banished from the kingdom^ 
within fifteen days, all Protestant ecclesiastics who would not recant. 
Afterwards he closed the ports against the fugitives, sent to the gal- 
leys those who attempted to escape, and confiscated tlieir property. 



^^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

France lost by these cruel measures two hundred thousand — some 
say five hundred thousand — of her best subjects ; and the bigotry 
of Louis gave a greater blow to the industry and wealth of his king- 
dom than the unlimited expenses of his pride and ambition. 

15. The cruelties of Louis to the Protestants roused the hearts 
of the Germans, Dutch, and English, against him, and accelerated a 
general war. In 1 686 a league was formed at Augsburg by all the 
G-erman princes to restrain the encroachments of Louis : Holland 
joined it, — Spain also, excited by jealousy of a domineering neighbor; 
Sweden, Denmark, and Savoy, were afterwards gained ; and the 
revolution of 1688, by which William of Holland ascended the 
throne of England, placed the latter country at the head of the 
confederacy. But Louis was not daunted by the power of the 
league : anticipating his enemies, he was first in the field, sending an 
army against Germany in 1688, which ravaged the Palatinate^ with 
fire and sword. He also sent an army into Flanders, one into Italy, 
and a third to check the Spaniards in Catalonia ; while at the same 
time he sent a fleet and an army to Ireland, to aid James IL in re- 
covering the throne of England. 

16. After the first campaign, in which Louis profited little, he 
gave the command of his armies to new generals of approved talent, 
and instantly the fortune of the war changed. In 1690 Savoy was 
overrun by the French marshal Catinat, and Flanders by marshal 
Luxembourg : the combined scpadrons of England and Holland 
were defeated by the French admiral Tourville, ofi" Beachy Head ;'' 
and a descent was made on the coast of England. In 1692 the for- 
tress of Namur^ was taken by the French, in spite of all the efforts 
of William and the allies to relieve it ; but during the progress of the 
siege the French were defeated in a terrible naval battle off Cape 
La Hogue ;* a battle that decided the fate of the Stuarts, and marks 
the era of England's dominion over the seas. 

• 

1. The Palatinate, by which is generally understood the Lower Palathiatc, or Palatinate of 
the Rhine, was a country of Germany, on both sides of the Rhine, embracing about sixteen 
hundred square miles, and now divided among Prussia, Bavaria, Baden, Hesse Darmstadt 
Nassau, &c. That part of it west of the Rhine, and belonging to Bavaria, is still called " The 
Palatinate." The Upper Palatinate, embracing a somewhat larger territory, was in Bavaria, 
and bordered on Boheihia. Amberg was its capital. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Beachy Head is a bold promonto.ry on the southern coast of England, eighteen miles 
Bouth-west I'rom Hastings. {J\Iap No. XVI.) 

3. J\ramur is a strongly-fortified town of Belgium, at the junction of the Sarabre and Meuse, 
Ihirty-five miles south-east from Brussels. {Maj) No. XV.) 

4. Cape La Hogue is a prominent headland of France, on the English Channel, sixteen 
miles north-west of Cherbourg. {Map No. XIII.) 



Chap. IV.J SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 385 

17. The campaign of 1693 was fortunate for the French, who 
gained the bloody battle of Nerwinden^ over king William — defeated 
the duke of Savoy in a general action at Marseilles — made progress 
against the Spaniards in Catalonia — and gained some advantages 
at sea. But after this jear Louis no longer visited his armies in 
person ; and succeeding campaigns became less fruitful of important 
and decisive results. France had been exhausted by the enormous 
exertions of her monarch, and all parties were anxious to terminate 
a war in which much blood had been shed, much treasure expended, 
and no permanent acquisitions made. Conferences for peace com- 
menced in 1696; and in the beginning of 1697 the plenipotentiaries 
of the several powers assembled at Ryswick,^ a small town in Hol- 
land. In the treaty, which was signed in September, England gained 
only the recognition of the monarch of her choice ; while the French 
king's renunciation of the Spanish succession, which had been one 
important object of the war, was not even mentioned. Although 
in the treaty Louis appeared to make concessions, yet he kept the 
new frontier that he had chosen in Flanders, whilst the possession of 
Strasburg^ extended the French limits to the Rhine. Louis had 
baffled the most powerful European league ; and although the com- 
merce of the kingdom was destroyed, and the country exhausted of 
men and money, while a dreadful famine was ravaging what war had 
spared, yet at the close of the seventeenth century France still pre- 
served, over surrounding nations, the ascendency that Richelieu had 
planned, and that Louis XIY. had proudly won. 

IV. CoTEMPORARY H1STOR.Y. — 1. Bcsides France, England, Ger- 
many, and the countries connected with them in wars and alliances, 
the strictly universal history of this period embraces a range more 
extended than that of any previous century. On the continent the 
histories of the leading powers become more and more intermingled ; 

J. J^erwinden is a small village of Belgium, about thirty-three miles south-east from Brussels. 

2. Ryswick is a small town in the west of Holland, two miles south-east from Hague, and 
thirty-five south-west from Amsterdam. The peace of Ryswick terminated what is known in 
American history as " King William's War,"— a war between the French and the English 
American colonies, attended with numerous inroads of the Indians, who were in alliance with 
the French. (Map No. XV.) 

3. Strashurg is an ancient fortified city on the west bank of the Rhine, in the former prov- 
ince of Alsace. It is principally noted for its cathedral, said to ha\'e been originally founded 
by Clovis, in 504. The modern building, however, was begun in 1015, but not finished (ill the 
fifteenth century. Its spire reaches to tho extraordinary height of four hundred and sixty-six 
feet— about seven feet higher than St. Peter's in Rome, and about five feet higher than the 
great pyramid of Cheops. {J\Iaps Nos. XIII. and XVII.) 

25 



386 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

the Northern States are seen growing in importance, and beginning 
to take part in European politics ; while, abroad, colonies are planted, 
that are soon to assume the rank of independent and powerful nations. 

2. It was not until after the Reformation that the three Scandi- 

navian States, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, came into 

I. DENMARK, . , i ^ . /. /-•! . i 

SWEDEN, contact with the Southern nations of Christendom, nor 
AND until the commencement of the " Thirty Years' War," 
in the early part of the seventeenth century, that they 
took any active part in the concerns of their southern neighbors, 
when, under the conduct of the heroic Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden 
and her allies warred so manfully in the cause of religious freedom 
Under Gustavus, the glory and power of Sweden attained their 
greatest height ; and although the successes of the Swedish arms 
continued under Christina, Charles X., and Charles XI., Swedish 
history offers little further that is interesting to the general student 
until the accession of Charles XII. in 1697, the extraordinary 
events of whose career belong to the next centur}^ 

3. The history of Poland, during most of the seventeenth cen- 

tury, is of less interest to the general reader than that of 
Sweden, being filled with accounts of unimportant do- 
mestic contentions among the nobility, and of foreign wars with 
Sweden, Russia, and Turkey, while the mass of the people, in the 
lowest state of degradation, were slaves, in the fullest extent of the 
term, and not supposed to have any legal existence. The greatest 
of the monarchs of Poland was John Sobieski, elected to the throne 
in 1674, the fame of whose victories over the Turks threw a transient 
splendor on the waning destinies of his ill-fated country. His first 
great achievement was the victory of Kotzim,^ gained, with a com- 
paratively small force, over an army of eighty thousand Mussulmen, 
strongly intrenched on the banks of the Dniester, leaving forty thou- 
sand of the enemy dead in the precincts of the camp. (Nov. 1673.) 
All Europe was electrified with this extraordinary triumph, the great- 
est that had been won for three centuries over the infidels. 

4. Other victories of the Polish hero, scarcely less important, are 
recorded in the annals of Poland ; but what has immortalized the 
name of John Sobieski is the deliverance of Vienna^ in 1683. A 

1. Kotzim is now au important fortress of south-weslern Russia, situated on the right bank 
of the Dniester, in the province of Bessarabia. The Turks strongly-fortified it in 1718, but it 
was successively taken by the Russians in 1730, 1769, and 1788. {Map No. XV 11.) 

2. f^iemia, the capital of the Austrian empire, is on the southern bank of the Danube, three 
hundred and thirty miles south-east, from Berlin, and eight hundred miles north-west from 



Uhap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 387 

revolt of the Hungarians from the dommion of Austria, and an alli- 
ance formed between them and the Turks, had brought an army of 
nearly three hundred thousand men against the Austrian capital, 
which was defended by its citizens, and a garrison of little more 
than eleven thousand men. After an active siege of more than two 
months, Vienna was reduced to the last extremity. In the mean- 
time the Austrian emperor, who had left his capital to make what 
defence it could against the immense hosts of Turks that poured 
down upon it, had solicited the aid of the Polish king ; and Sobieski 
was not long in making his appearance at the head of a small, but 
resolute army of eighteen thousand veterans. The combined Polish 
and Austrian forces, when all assembled, amounted to only seventy 
thousand men, whom the Turks outnumbered more than three to 
one ; but Sobieski, whose name alone was a terror to the infidels, 
was at once the Agamemnon and Achilles of the Christian host. 

5. Sunday the 12th of September, 1683, was the important day 
that was to decide whether the Turkish crescent or the cross, was to 
wave on the turrets of Vienna. At five o'clock in the afternoon 
Sobieski had drawn up his forces in the plain fronting the Mussul- 
men camp, and ordering the advance, he exclaimed aloud, " Not to 
us, Lord, but to thee be the glory." Whole bands of Tartar 
troops broke and fled when they heard the name of the Polish hero 
repeated from one end to the other of the Ottoman lines. At the 
same moment an eclipse of the moon added to the consternation of 
the superstitious Moslems, v/ho beheld with dread the crescent 
waning in the heavens. With a furious charge the Polish infantry 
seized an eminence that commanded the grand Vizier's position, 
when Kara Mustapha, taken by surprise at this unexpected attack, 
fell at once from the heights of confidence to the depths of despair. 
Charge upon charge was rapidly hurled upon the already wavering 
Moslems, whose rout soon became general. In vain the vizier tried 
to rally the broken hosts. " Can you not aid me !" said he to the 

Constantinople. Population about three hundred and seventy thousand. In Roman history 
Vienna is known as Vindabona, (see Map No. VIII.,) and is remarkable as being the place 
where Marcus Aurelius died. After the time of Charlemagne, margraves or dukes held Vienna 
till the middle of the thirteenth century, soon after which it came into the possession of the 
house of Hapsburg. In 1484 it was taken by the Hungarians, whose king, Matthias, made it 
the seat of his court. Since the time of Maximilian it has been the usual residence of the 
arch-dukes of Austria, and the emperors of Germany. About two miles from the city is 
Schonbrunn. the favorite summer residence of the emperor. It was twice occupied by Napo- 
leon: the treaty of Schonbrunn was signed in it in 1808, and here the duke of Reichstadt, son 
of Napoleon, died in 1832. (Map No. XVII.) 



a88 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

cham of the Tartars, who passed him among the fugitives. " I know 
the king of Poland," was the reply ; " and I tell you, that with such 
an enemy we have no safety but in flight. Look at the sky ; see if 
God is not against us." 

6. So sudden and general was the panic among the Turks, that at 
six o'clock Sobieski entered the camp where a hundred and twenty 
thousand tents were still found standing ; the innumerable multitude 
of the Orientals had disappeared ; but their spoils, their horses, 
their camels, their splendor, loaded the ground. The cause of Chris- 
tianity — of civilization — had prevailed ; the wave of Mussulman 
power had retired, never to return. But Sobieski received little 
thanks from a jealous monarch for rescuing him and his country 
from irretrievable ruin ; and Poland — unhappy Poland ! had saved 
a serpent from death, which afterward turned and stung her for the 
kindness. Sobieski died in 1696, in the midst of the ruin that was 
fast overwhelming his country through the dissensions and clamors 
of a turbulent nobility, and just in time to save his withered laurels 
from being torn from his brow by the rude hand of rebellion. With 
him the greatness of his native land may be said to have ended. 

7. Russia^ at the commencement of the seventeenth century, was 
immersed in extreme ignorance and barbarism ; and al- 
though a glimmering of light dawned upon her during 

the reign of Alexis, who died in 1677, yet the great epoch in the 
history of Russia is the reign of Peter the Great, whose genius first 
opened to its people the advantages of civilization. In 1689, this 
prince, then only seventeen years of age, became sole monarch of 
Russia. The vigorous development of his mind was a subject of 
universal wonder and admiration. Full of energy and activity, he 
found nothing too arduous to be attempted, and he commenced at 
once the vast project of changing the whole system of the govern- 
ment, and of reforming the manners of the people. His first exer- 
tions were directed to the remodelling and disciplining of the army, 
and the improvement of his resources ; and from the model of a small 
yacht on the river which runs through Moscow, he constructed the 
first Russian navy. In 1694 he took from the Turks the advan- 
tageous port of Azof,^ which opened to his subjects the commerce of 

1. The sea of Azof , the Palus Mxotis of the ancients, communicates by the narrow strait of 
Yeuicale, (an. Cimmerian Bosporus,) with the north-western angle of the Black Sea. The 
port of Azof is at the mouth of the Don, at the north-eastern extremity of the sea of Azof. 
The town, anciently called Tanais, and, in the middle ages, Tana, once had an extensive trade, 
but is now fast falling into decay. 



III. RUSSIA. 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 389 

the Black Sea. This acquisitiou enlarged his views, and he com- 
menced a system of internal improvements, which had for its ob- 
ject, by connecting the waters of the Dwina,^ the Yolga,^ and the 
Don, to open a water communication between the Baltic, Black, and 
Caspian Seas. A few years later he laid, near the shores of the 
Gulf of Finland, the foundations of St. Petersburg,^ a city which he 
designed to be the emporium of Northern commerce and the capital 
of his dominions. 

8. Being convinced of the superiority of the natives of Western 
Europe over his own barbarous subjects, in 1697 he sent out to Italy, 
Holland, and Germany, two or three hundred young men, to learn 
the arts of those countries, particularly ship-building and navigation ; 
and in the following year he himself left his dominions, as a private 
individual, to procure knowledge by his own observation and experi- 
ence. He visited Amsterdam, where he entered himself as a com- 
mon carpenter in one of the principal dockyards, laboring and liv- 
ing like the other workmen, and demanding the same pay ; he also 
went to England, where he examined the principal naval arsenals ; and 
after a year's absence returned home, greatly improved in mechanical 
science, and accompanied by numerous artisans whom he had engaged 
to aid him in the great design of instructing his subjects in the arts 
of more civilized nations. The chief political acts of the reign of 
this truly great man belong to the history of the next century. 

9. In the sixteenth century Turkey^ during the reign of Solyman 
the Magnificent, the cotemporary of the emperor Charles 

XV TURKEY 

v., had become the most powerful empire in the world, 
reaching from the confines of Austria on the west, to the banks 
of the Euphrates on the east, and extending over Egypt on the 
south. Other able princes, who succeeded Solyman, with Mussul- 
man pride held all the rest of the world in scorn, and the Ottoman 
arms continued to maintain their ascendency over those of Christen- 
dom until the latter part of the seventeenth century, when, in 1683, 
the famous Sobieski, king of Poland, totally defeated the army em- 

1. The Dicina here mentioned rises near the sources of the Volga, and empties into the Gulf 
of Riga, in the Baltic, nine miles below Riga. Another river of the same name falls into the 
White Sea, thirty-flve miles below Archangel. 

2. The Volga^ or JVofga, the Largest river of Europe, has its sources in central Russia, and 
its mouth in the Caspian Sea. It is the great artery of Russia, and the grand route of the in- 
ternal traffic of that empire ; but it is said that its waters are decreasing in depth, and that 
sandbanks are becoming serious obstacles to its navigation. 

3. St. Petersburg-, the modern capital of Russia, and one of the largest and finest cities ot 
Europe, is situated at the mouth of the river Neva, at its entrance into the Gulf of Finland. 



390 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ployed in the siege of Vienna. This event marks the era of the 
decline of the Ottoman power. A powerful league formed between 
Austria, Russia, Poland, and Venice, followed upon the defeat of 
the Ottoman forces at Vienna, and in 1687 the Turks were finally 
driven out of Hungary, and dispossessed of the greater portion of 
Southern Greece. In 1697, while this war continued, they sustained 
a total defeat by the famous Prince Eugene, in the battle of Zenta,' 
in which they lost thirty thousand men. The treaty of Carlowitz'^ 
in 1699, completed the humiliation of the Porte ;^ Transylvania,' 
Sclavonia,* and Hungary, being preserved to the emperor of Austria ; 
Podolia,^ with other portions of the Ukraine," remaining in the pos- 
session of Poland, while Russia retained her conquests on the Black 
Sea. Morea, or Southern Grreece, was ceded to Venice. 

10. The political history of Italy ^ during the seventeenth century, 
is of trifling importance, but the social condition of its 
people merits a passing notice. The Reformation had 
destroyed the political influence of the pope, who was reduced to the 
rank of a petty sovereign over the small territory embraced in the 
" States of the Church ;" while Spain, mistress of the fairest prov- 
inces of the peninsula, as well as of its two large and beautiful 
islands, inflicted upon the country numerous evils which made the 
people at once poor and miserable. The effects of Spanish rule are 
faithfully characterized by a Milanese writer, who forcibly depicts 
the wretchedness of the fertile and once populous valley of Lom- 
bardy. " The Spaniards," he remarks, " possessed central Lombardy 
for a hundred and seventy-two years. They found in its chief city 

1. Zenta is a small town of Southern Hungary, on the Theiss, a northern hranch of the Dan- 
ube, two hundred and forty miles south-east from Vienna. (In history the name of this town 
is variously spelled Zenta, Zentha, Zeuta, and Zeutha.) {J^laji No. XVII.) 

2. Carloicitz is a town of Austrian Sclavonia, on the southern bank of the Danube, about 
fifty miles south of Zenta. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Transylvania is the most eastern province of the Austrian empire, lying east of Hungary, 
and north of the Turkish province of Wallachia. II is divided principally among three dis- 
tinct races,— the Magyar, the Szekler or Siculi, and the Saxon. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Sclavonia, a province of the Austrian empire, usually regarded as forming a part of Hun- 
gary, has Hungary on the north, and the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Servia on the south. 
{Map No. XVII.) 

5. Podolia, now a province of south-western Russia, lies along the eastern bank of the 
Dniester. It was long governed by its own princes ; but, in 1569, it was united to Poland. It 
has belonged to Russia since 1793. {Map No. XVII.) 

6. The Urkaine, (a word signifying '•'' the frontier,''') was an extensive country in the south- 
eastern part of Russian Poland, now forming the Russian provinces of Podolia, Kiev, Charkow, 
and Poltava. Kiev, on the Dnieper, was the chief town. {Map No. XVII.) 

a. Porte — the Ottoman court, so called from the gate of the sultan's palace where justice is 
administered ; as the Sublime Porte. L. porta, Fr. parte, " a door or gate." 



Chap IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 391 

three hundred thousand souls : they left in it scarcely a third of that 
number. They found in it seventy woollen manufactories : they left 
in it no more than five. They found agriculture skilful and flour- 
ishing : before the province was wrested from them they had passed 
laws which made emigration a capital crime." The Spanish gov- 
ernors of the provinces looked upon the conquered countries as es- 
tates calculated to fill their own and the royal coffers ; and not only 
was the nation drained of its treasure, but of its blood also. The 
flower of the people, draughted by thousands into the Spanish 
armies, perished in the wars of France, Germany, and the Netherlands. 

1 1. But numerous as were the evils which flowed from the admin- 
istrative oppression of the Spaniards, they were light when compared 
with the fearful corruption in morals that pervaded the whole system 
of society. An insidious licentiousness, under the garb of gallantry, 
had been introduced by the Spaniards, while the spirit of the people, 
kindled into frenzy by Castilian fancies about knightly honor, but no 
longer ennobled by personal courage, or manly self-respect, made 
Italy, for many generations, infamous as the scene of poisonings and 
assassinations. Risings and revolutions of the people were freijuent ; 
during nearly the whole period of the seventeenth century the coasts 
were continually infested by Turkish and Algerine corsairs ; the 
fields were ravaged ; houses, villages, and whole towns were burned ; 
and thousands were carried away into slavery ; while, in the interior, 
robbers were scarcely less destructive, large troops of whom plun- 
dered, or exacted ransoms, and more than once resisted successfully 
battalions of regular soldiers. Such is the mournful picture pre- 
sented by Italy, the land of Roman greatness and renown, during 
the seventeenth century. 

12. The principal events, to which we have not already al- 
luded, that mark the history of the Spanish penin- 

sula during the seventeenth century, are the expulsion Spanish 
of the Moors, the revolt of Portugal, and the ac- p^^'^^^^u^'^- 
knowledgment of the independence of Holland. Twice during 
the sixteenth century, the Moors, or Moriscos, had risen against 
their Christian masters ; they had been dispersed, from Granada, 
among the other Spanish provinces, and compelled, against their 
will, to receive Christian baptism. Tranquillity could scarcely 
be hoped from so arbitrary a measure ; and the Moriscos, thirsting 
for revenge, entered into a correspondence with the African princes, 
whom they urged to invade the peninsula, promising to rise on the 



392 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

first signal. This circumstance becoming known, the expulsion of the 
whole body was decreed, and the cruel mandate was carried into 
execution, although not without open resistance in several of the 
provinces. (1610.) In all, no fewer than six hundred thousand of 
the most ingenious and industrious portion of the community were 
forcibly driven from their homes, while large numbers^ by making a 
profession of Christianity, were permitted to remain. This was a 
blow no less fatal to the prosperity of Spain, than the revocation of 
the edict of Nantes was to a sister kingdom. 

13. Portugal had been united to Spain in 1580, partly by con- 
quest, and partly in accordance with the wishes of a portion of its 
nobility ; but the union failed to give satisfaction to the people of the 
former country. Finding themselves ground to the dust by intoler- 
able taxes and forced loans, their complaints disregarded, their per- 
sons insulted, and their prosperity at an end, in 1640 they organized a 
general revolt, and the sway of Spain over Portugal was forever broken, 
by the election, to the throne, of the duke of Braganza,^ with the title 
of John IV. To complete the humiliation of Spain, eight years later, 
in the treaty of Munster,'^ she was compelled to acknowledge the in- 
dependence of Holland, after having maintained against her a warfare 
of eighty years' duration, only interrupted by a brief truce of twelve 
years from 1609 to 1621 ; and even during this period, hostilities 
did not cease in the Indies. The disasters that were befalling Ro- 
man Catholic Spain were fast overwhelming that proud monarchy 
with disgrace and ruin, while the new Republic of Holland was 
taking its place, as a free and independent State, among the most 
powerful nations of Europe. The treaty of Westphalia, signed the 
same year, 1648, secured to Holland internal tranquillity, by recon- 
ciling the conflicting interests of her own people, and guaranteeing 
the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, — one of the noble aims 
and results of Christian civilization. 

1 4. The history of the Asiatic nations in the seventeenth century, 
^,^j merits but little notice. During this period a series of 

ASIATIC imbecile tyrants ruled over Persia. Their reigns were 
NATIONS, generally peaceful, but the higher classes were enervated 

1. Braganza is a town at the north-eastern extremity of Portugal. In 1442 it was erected 
into a duchy, and in 1640, John, eighth duke of Braganza, ascended the Portuguese throne, 
under the title of John IV. His descendants continue to enjoy the crown of Portugal, and 
have also acquired that of Brazil. The town and surrounding district of Braganza still belong 
to the king of Portugal as the duke of Braganza. {Map No. XIII,) 

2. Munster^ a town of Westphalia, is ninety-five miles nortli-east from Aix-la-chapelle. The 
treaty of Munster was a part of that of Westphalia. See Westphalia, p. 3G0. (Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 393 

by luxury, and the martial spirit of the people suffered so much 
from inaction, that early in the following century the Affghans, a 
warlike people on the confines of India, invaded the kingdom, and 
placed the royal diadem on the head of their chief Mahmoud. In 
1644 an important revolution was terminated in China, by which the 
Manchoos, a race sprung from the expelled Mongols and the eastern 
Tartars, established themselves firmly in the empire, after a war of 
twenty-seven years' duration. Happily for the country, Shunchy, 
the first emperor of the Manchoo-Tartar dynasty, showed himself a 
generous and enlightened monarch ; and his son and successor 
Kang-hy, who had the singular fortune to reign sixty years, was one 
of the most illustrious sovereigns that ever ruled the country, — the 
Chinese historians ascribing to him almost every virtue that can 
adorn a throne. 

15. In the early part of the seventeenth century the great Mogul 
empire of x\sia, having northern Hindostan for the seat of its central 
power, and the Persian dominions for its western limits, gradually 
declined in greatness until, in 1659, the famous Am-ungzebe succeed- 
ed to the throne, by the imprisonment of his father. Under this 
prince, who ruled with the most tyrannical cruelty, establishing Mo- 
hammedanism throughout his dominions by a rigorous persecution 
of the Hindoos, and the destruction of their temples, the Mogul em- 
pire was extended and consolidated; but on his death, in 1707, it 
experienced a rapid decline, and was soon broken into fragments. 

»16. The seventeenth century marks the era of the establishment 
of the principal Dutch, Spanish, French, and English ^^^^ ^^^^_ 
colonies in the New World, and on the coasts of Asia nial estab- 
and Africa. Near the close of the preceding century the ^^'^'^^^ents. 
Dutch had founded the colony of Surinam^ in South America, and 
in 1607 they gained a footing in the East Indies by capturing, from 
the Portuguese, the Moluccas^ or Spice Islands, which they continued 
to hold against all competitors. A few years later they founded 
New Amsterdam, now New York. In 1619 they founded Batavia, 

1- Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, is on the north-eastern coast of South America, liaving French 
Guiana on the east, and Englisli Guiana on tlie west. 

2, The Moluccas, of wliich Ambosyna is the principal, are a ciuster of small islands north 
of Australia or New Holland, and between Celebes and New Guinea. They are distinguished 
chiefly for the production of spices, particularly nutmegs and cloves. When in 151 J the Por- 
tuguese discovered these islands, the Arabians were already settled there. The Portuguese had 
almost the entire monopoly of the spice trade till the be^ginning of tlie seventeenth centur}', 
when the Dutch took the islands from them. Since 1796 the Moluccas have been twice con- 
quered by the English, but by the peace of Paris in 1815 they were restored to the Dutch. 



394 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II, 

in the island of Java ; — about the same time they wrested the Jap- 
anese trade from the Portuguese. In 1650 they seized and colonized 
the Cape of Good Hope, which had previously been claimed by the 
English, and six years later they expelled the Portuguese from the 
island of Ceylon.^ The Dutch adopted, in their colonial regulations, 
a more exclusive system of policy than other nations ; and this, to- 
gether with their harsh treatment of the natives, was the principal 
cause of the final ruin of their empire in the Indies. 

17. The numerous colonies founded by Spain in the New World 
during the previous century had now become consolidated into one 
vast empire, embracing most of the islands of the West Indies, to- 
gether with the extensive realms of Mexico and Peru, over which 
the Spanish monarch ruled with the most absolute despotism. The 
immense wealth derived from these possessions excited the envy and 
cupidity of all Europe ; and frequently, during the wars of the sev- 
enteenth century, the Spanish fleets, laden with the gold and silver 
of the New World, fell into the hands of the Dutch, French, or 
English cruisers ; while bands of pirates, or Buccaneers, who had 
their coverts among the small islands of the West Indies, often 
plundered the coasts, and roamed at will, the terror of the Spanish 
seas. 

18. The materials for a history of the Spanish possessions in the 
New World, during nearly three centuries, are exceedingly meagre 
and uninteresting, treating of little but the same unvarying rule of 
arbitrary and avaricious viceroys or governors, of commercial re- 
strictions the most odious and oppressive, and of the miseries of an 
aboriginal population, the most abject that could possibly be conceived. 

19. The French colonization, in the New World, during the sev- 
enteenth century, embraces only the founding of Quebec, and a few 
other feeble settlements in the Canadas ; and, at the verj^ close of 
the century, the landing of two hundred emigrants, and the erection 
of a rude fort, in Lower Louisiana. Nor was anything important 
accomplished by the French, during this period, in the newly discov- 
ered regions of the Old World. About the middle of the century 
they attempted to make Madagascar^ one of their colonies, a scheme 

1. Ceylon is a large island belonging to Great Britain, near the soulliern extremity of Hin- 
dostan. The cinnamon tree, which was found only in Ceylon and Cochin-China, is its most 
valuable production. Extensive ruins of cities, canals, aqueducts, bridges, temples, &c., show 
that Ceylon was, at a remote period, a rich, populous, and comparatively civilized country. 
After Holland had been erected into the Balavian republic in 1795, the English took possession 
of Ceylon, and at the peace of Amiens, in 1802, it was formally ceded to them. 

2, J\Iadugascar is a large island off the eastern coast of South Africa, from v/hich it is scpa- 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 395 

which proved futile on account of the extreme unhealthiness of the 
island. In 1672 the French purchased the town of Pondicherry,^ 
in Hindostan, from its native sovereign, and established there a 
colony with every reasonable prospect of success ; but the place was 
several times taken from them by the Dutch and the English, until, 
finally, it was restored at the treaty of Paris in 1815, and is now the 
principal French settlement on the Asiatic continent. 

20. In the latter part of the sixteenth century the English began to 
turn their attention to the commerce of the East Indies ; and in the year 
1600 a company of London merchants, known as the London East India 
Company, obtained a charter from queen Elizabeth, giving to them the 
exclusive right of trading with those distant countries. During the 
seventeenth century the London company made little progress in ef- 
fecting settlements in the Indies ; and at the close of that period, a 
small part of the island of Java,^ Fort St. George at Madras,^ the 
island of Bombay,* and Fort William erected at Calcutta^ in 1699, 

rated by Mozambique Channel. Soon after the peace of 1815 the French formed several small 
colonies on the eastern coast of the island ; and from 1818 to 1825 the Eughsh missionaries had 
some success in converting the natives ; but since the latter period the missionaries have been 
forbidden to approach the island, and Madagascar may now be reckoned among the barbarous 
countries of eastern Africa. 

1. Pondicherry is a town of Hindostan, on the south-eastern coast, eighty miles south-west 
from Madras. Population about fifty-five thousand. The French possessions in India, com- 
prising Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Karical in the Carnatic, Mah6 in Malibar, and Vanaon in 
Orissa, with the territory attached to each, have a total population of about one hundred and 
sixty-six thousand, of whoin one thousand are whites. 

2. Java is a large island of the Asiatic archipelago, south of Borneo, belonging principally to 
the Dutch, and the centre, as well as the most valuable, of their possessions in the East. Area, 
n little less than that of the State of New York. Population between five and six millions. 
The Portuguese reached Java in 1511, and the Dutch in 1595. The latter founded Batavia in 
1619. In 1811 Java was taken by a British force, and held till 1816, when, in pursuance of the 
treaty of Paris, it was restored to the Dutch. 

3. Madras is a large city on the south-eastern coast of Hindostan, eight hundred and seventy 
miles south-west from Calcutta. Population upwards of four hundred thousand. Madras is 
badly situated, has no harbor, and is almost wholly iniapproachable by sea. It was the first 
acquisition made in India by the British, who obtained it by grant from the rajah of Bijnagur, 
in 1639, with permission to erect a fort there. The fort was besieged in 1702 by one of Aurung- 
zebe's generals ; and in 1744 by the French, to whom it surrendered after a bombardment of 
three days. It was restored to the English at the peace of Aix-la-CIiapelle, and successfully sus- 
tained a memorable siege by the French under Lally in 1758-9 ; since which it has experienced no 
hostile attack. Madras is the capital of tlie British presidency of the same name, which embraces 
the whole of South Hindostan, extending about five hundred miles north from Cape Comorin. 

4. Bovibay is built on an island of the same name, on the western coast of Hindostan, ten 
hundred and fifty miles south-west from Calcutta. Population about two hundred and forty 
thousand. In 1530 Bombay was obtained by the Portuguese from a Hindoo chief: by theui it 
was ceded to Charles II., in 1661, as part of queen Catherine's dowry; and in 1668 it was 
transferred, by the king, to the East India Company, at an annual rent of ten pounds sterling. 
Soon after it realized to the company a revenue of three thousand pounds a year, Bombay is 
the capital of the presidency of the same name. 

5. Calcutta, the capital of the British dominions in tiic East, is situated on the eastern side 



396 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

the whole inhabited by only a few hundred Europeans, formed the 
extent of their East India possessions. Such was the feeble be- 
ginning, and slow progress, of an association of merchants that " now 
rules over an empire containing a hundred millions of subjects, raises 
a tribute of more than three millions annually, possesses an army 
of more than two hundred thousand men, has princes for its servants, 
and emperors pensioners on its bounty." 

21. The first successful attempt at American colonization by the 
English was the settlement of Jamestown, in Virginia, in the year 
1607. This was followed by the settlement of Plymouth in New 
England, in 1620, by a band of Puritans, who had resolved to seek, 
in the wilderness of America, that freedom of worship which their 
native country denied them. During the same century the English 
formed settlements in all the Atlantic States from Maine to Georgia, 
the latter only excepted, which was not colonized until the year 
1733 ; the Dutch, who had settled New Amsterdam, now New York, 
were conquered by the English in 1644 ; and at the same time the 
Swedes, who had settled Delaware, and had subsequently been re- 
duced by the Dutch, shared the fate of their masters. The history 
of the British American colonies, during the seventeenth century, is 
marked no less by the struggles of the colonists against the natural 
difficulties of their situation, and by the Indian wars in which they 
were often involved, than by their noble resistance to the arbitrary 
and oppressive rule of the mother country. The early colonists, 
those of New England especially, had left their homes on the other 
side of the Atlantic, to seek, in the wilds of America, an asylum 
whore they might enjoy unmolested their religious faith and worship ; 
and they brought with them to the land of their adoption, that spirit 
of independence, and those principles of freedom, which laid the 
foundation of American liberty. 

22. The early history of these colonies is full of instruction to all, — 
in its lessons of patient endurance, and unyielding perseverance, ex- 
alted heroism, individual piety, and public virtue ; but to American 
citizens it possesses a peculiar interest, as the history of the develop- 
ment and growth of those principles of free government which suc- 

of the river Hoogly, the most western arm of the Ganges, about one hundred miles from its 
entrance into the Bay of Bengal. Resident population about two hundred and thirty thousand. 
The English first made a settlement here in 1690, when Calcutta was but a small village, in- 
habited chiefly by husbandmen. In 1756 a Bengal chief dispossessed the English of their settle- 
ment, but it was retaken by Colonel Clive in the following year,, since which it has been quietly 
retained by the British, and risen to its present degree of importance. 



Chap. IV.] SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 397 

ceeding time has perfected to the happiness and glory of our country, 
and the advancement of the cause of freedom throughout the world. 
In a work of general history like the present we cannot hope to do 
such a subject justice ; and instead of attempting here a brief and 
separate compend of our early annals, it will be more satisfactory 
and useful to refer the student to some of the numerous standard 
works on Amercan history which are at all times accessible to him, 
and with some one of which it is presumable every A^nerican youth 
will early make himself familiar, before he enters upon the study of 
the general history of nations. 



fH MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

CHAPTER Y. 

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 

I. WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, AND CLOSE OF THE 
REIGN OF LOUIS XIV. 

ANALYSIS. 1. Pride and ambition of Louis XIV. Events ttiat led to the " war of the 
Spanish Succession." England, Germany, and Holland, declare war against France, 
1702.— 2. Causes that induced England to engage iu the war. The opposing powers. Death 
of king William. Queen Anne.— 3. Opening of the campaign by Austria and England. Tlie 
French generals.— 4. The campaign of 1702. Naval events. [Cadiz. Vigo Bay.] Events 
OF 1703.— 5. Events of 1704. [Blenheim. Gibraltar.]- 6. Events of 1705 and HOG. French 
losses. [Ramillies. Mons. Barcelona. ]\Iadrid.]~7. Overtures of peace. Campaign of 
1707. [Alraanza. Toulon.] Events of 1708. [Oudenarde. Brussels.]— 8. Sufferings of the 
French in the year 1709. Haughtiness of the monarch.— 9. Louis in vain seeks peace with 
Holland. Battle of Malplaqnet. [Malplaquet.] Successes of Louis in Spain. His doraostic 
misfortunes.— 10. Death of the Austrian emperor. Importance of that event. Decline of the 
war.— 11. Treaty of Utrecht, April 11th, 1713. [Minorca. Newfoundland. Hudson's Bay 
territory. St. Christopher. Radstadt. Lisle. Alsace.]— 12. Death of Louis XIV. Character 

OF THE RKIGN OF LOUIS XIV. 

II. PETER THE GREAT OF RUSSIA, AND CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN. 

1. The north and east of Europe dunng the war of the Spanish succession. Beginnhig 
of the reign of the Russian monarch.— 2. Leading object with the Czar. He is induced to en- 
gage in a war with Sweden. His allies. [Livonia. Riga.]— 3. Sweden. Reported character 
of Charles XII. The Swedish council, and declarations of Charles. Change in the king's 
character. — 4. Beginning of hostilities against Sweden, in the year 1700. [Sleswick. 
Ilolstein. Narva.] Charles humbles Denmark. [Copenhagen.]— 5. The Polish king. Charles 
marches against Narva. — 6. Signal defeat of the Russians at Narva. Remark of the 
Czar. Superstition of the Russians.— 7. Tlie course pursued by Peter. Resolution of Charles. 
—8. Victories OF Charles IN the year 1702. [Courland. Warsaw. Cracow.] The Polish 
king deposed. [Pultusk.] Charles declines tlie sovereignty of Poland.— 9. Increase of his power 
and influence. [Borysthenes.] His views, and plans, for the future.— 10. Policy, and gradual 
successes, of the Czar. [Neva. Ingria.]— 11. March of Charles into Russia, 1707-8. 
[Smolensko.]— 12. Passage of the Desna. [Desna.] Misfortunes of Charles.— 13. Situation of 
the Swedish army in the winter of 1708-9. Advance of Charles in the Spring. [Pultowa.]— 14. 
Siege and Battle OF PuLTOWA. Escape of Charles. [Bender. Campbell's description of the 
catastrophe at Pultowa.]— 15. Important effects of the battle of Pultowa.— 16. Warlike views 
still entertained by Charles. He enlists the Turks in his favor. Treaty between the Russians 
and Turks. [Pruth.]— 17. Lengthened stay of Charles in Turkey. Return of Charles.— IB. 
Situation of Sweden on his return. Warlike projects of Charles. Events of 1715. [Stock- 
holm.] Siege of Stralsund. Irruption into No rwaJ^ Project of a union with Russia. Death 
OK Charles, 1718. [Frederickshall.]— 19. Change in Swedish affairs. Peace with Russia. 
[Nystad.]— 20. Character of Charles the Twelfth. [Dr. Johnson's description of him.] 
—21. Death and character of Peter the Great. 

III. SPANISH WARS, AND WARS OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. 

1. Effects of the treaty of Utrecht. European Alliance for guaranteeing the fulfilment of 
the treaty. Spain finally compelled to accede to it.— 2. War between England and Spain 



Chap. Y.] EIGHTEK^TTH CENTURY. 399 

17.S9. Its causes. — 3. Causes of the war of the Austrian succession. [Pragmatic 
sanction.]— 4. Claims, and designs, upon tlie Austrian dominions. The position of England,— 5. 
Plan of THE coALiTiOiS against Austiua. Invasion of Austria, 1741. The diet of Frank- 
fort. [Frankfort.] iMaria Tiieresa and the Hungarians. Events of 1742 and 1743. [Munich. 
Dettingen.] — 6. Successes and reverses of Frederic of Prussia, 1741. The Austrian general. — 7. 
Death of Charles Albert, 1745. Successes of Marshal Saxe, [Fontenoy.] Treaty between 
Prussia and Austria. Francis I. — 8. Events in Italy in 1745. [Piedmont.] Events of the in- 
vasion OF England, 1745-G. [Edinburgh. Preston-pans. CuUoden.] Cruelties of the Eng- 
lish.— 9. Events in America, 1745-6. [Cape Breton.]— 10. Events of 1746-7. Treaty of 
Aix-LA-CiiAPELLE, Oct. 1743. lu what respect the result was favorable to all parties. 

IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR :— 1756— 63. 

1. The EIGHT YEARS OF PEACE that followcd the treaty of A!x-la-Chapelle. Causes that 
THREATENED ANOTHER WAR. — 2. East-Iiidia colouial difficulties between France and England. 
— 3. North American difficulties. Beginning of hostilities in 1754. Braddock's defeat, 
1755.-4. The connected interests of all the European States. The relations between Prussia 
and Austria. European Alliances growing out of them. — 5. The threatened danger to 
Prussia. — 6. First Campaign of Frederic, 1756. — 7. Declarations of war by Frajice and 
England, 1756. The first campaign. — 8. The opposing forces, 1757. Victory of Frederic at 
Prague, and defeat at Kolin. [Kolin.] General invasion of Prussia. Defeat of the English in 
Germany. — 9. Dangerous situation of Frederic. [Berlin.] Recall of the Russian army. 
Frederic advances into Saxony. — 10. Great victory of Frederic at Rossback. [Rossback.] — 11. 
Results of the battle. Frederic's treatment of the wounded and prisoners. — 12. The English 
and Hanoverians resume their arms. Affairs in Silesia. Victory of Frederic at Lissa. [Lissa.] 
Anecdote of Frederic— 13. Results of the campaign of 1757.-14. Successes of the duke of 
Brunswick, 1758. Frederic in Silesia — escapes from the Austrians at Olmutz, and marches 
against the Russians. [Olmutz.]— 15. Battle of Zorndorf. [Zorndorf.J Anecdotes. Action 
of Hochkirchen. [Hochkirchen.] Results of the campaign. — 16. Losses of the French in India 
and America.— 17. Opening of the campaign of 17o'.). Defeat of Frederic at Kuncrsdorf. 
[Kunersdorf] His loss in Bohemia. Result, to the Austrians. — 18. The campaign of the duke 
of Brunswick. The results on the ocean and in the colonies. — 19. Losses of Frederic in the 
campaign of 1760. He defeats the enemy at Liegnitz and Torgau. [Liegnitz. Torgau.] — 20. 
The campaign in Germany.— 21. Alliance between France and Spain. Losses of Spain and 
France. [Cuba. Manilla. Belleisle. Guadaloupe.]— 22. The campaign of 1761. Coldness 
of England, and change in the Russian councils.— 23. General peace of 1763. The results, to 
England— to France— to Prussia. [Honduras.] The military character of Frederic. 

V. STATE OF EUROPE. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

1. General peace in Europe. Results of the " Seven Years' War." Efforts of Frederic 
for the good of his people.— 2. France during the closing years of the reign of Louis XV. 
Accession of Louis XVI.— 3. Condition of Russia. Her war with Turkey and Poland. [Mol- 
davia and Wallachia.] Dismemberment of Poland, 1773. — 4. State of parties in England. 
Taxation. Resignation of the earl of Bute.— 5. The GrenviUe ministry. The case of Mr. 
Wilkes. — 6. The subject of American taxation. The Stamp Act. — 7. Misfortunes of England 
in her attempts to coerce the Americans. — 8. Opening of the war with the colonies. — 9. 
European relations of England. Aid extended to the Americans. — 10. Capture of Bur- 
goyne, 1777, and alliance between France and the American States. — 11. Begin- 
ning of the w.AR between France and England. — 12. War in the West Indies. [Do- 
minica. St. Lucia.]— 13. Hostilities in the East Indies, and overthrow of the French power 
there. — 14. War between Spain and England. Events of 1779. [St. Vincents. Grenada.] 
— 15. Successes of Admiral Rodney, 1780. English merchant fleet captured by the Spaniards. 
—16. The English claim of the right of search. Armed neutrality against England. 
Principles of the Neutrality. General oonciurence in them. — 17. Rupture between England 
and Holland.— 18. Capture of St. Eustatia by the English. [St. Eustatia.]— 19. The Spaniards 
conquer West Florida. The French and English in the West Indies. [Tobago.] Naval battle 
off the coast of Holland. [Dogger Bank.]— 20. Results of the war between England and 



400 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

her American colonies. Continuance of the war in Europe. Siege of Gibraltar, 1781, and de- 
struction of the Spanish works.— 21. Minorca taken by Spain, 1782. Losse-s of the English in 
tlie West Indies. [Bahamas.] Naval victory of the English. [Carribee islands.]— 22. Con- 
tinued siege of Gibraltar. Preparations for an assault.— 23. Tlie assault.— 24. Generous conduct 
of the British seamen. Results of the assault.— 25. The war in the East Indies. Account 
of Hyder Ali. [Mysore. Seringapatam.]— 26. Successes of Ilyder Ali and his son Tippoo 
Saib, in 1780. Events of 1781-2.— 27. Tippoo concludes a treaty with the English, 1783. Re- 
newal of the war, 1790. Defeat and death of Tippoo, 1799.-23. Treaty of 1782. Generai. 
TREATY of 1783, betwceD England, France, and Spain. Its terms.— 29. Remarks upon the war 
of the Revolution. 

VI. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

1. The Democratic spirit of the American Revolution :— its influence upon French society. 
—2. State of France at the time of the death of Louis XV.— 3. Louis XVI. His character.— 4. 
Financial difficulties. Efforts of Turgot and Neckar, and the opposition which they en- 
countered.— 5. The system of Calonne, and its results.— 6. Brienne calls The States-General 
—7. Removal of Brienne, and restoration of Neckar. The policy of the court.— 8. The general 
agitation throughout France. The evils to be complained of. The clergy and the nobility. 
The philosophic party. The calling of the States-general— a revolutionary measure. Demands 
of the Commons. Results of the elections.- 9. New difficulty at the opening of the States- 
general. Its final settlement.— 10. Efifect of the triumph of the third estate. Revolutionary 
STATE OF Paris. Attack upon the Bastile, 1789.-11. Louis throws himself, for support, upon 
the popular party.— 12. The efifect. Revolutionary movements throughout France. Grkat 
Political changes.— 13. Two months of quiet. Famine, and mobs, in Paris. The mob at 
Versailles, and return of the Assembly and royal family to Paris.- 14. Formation of a Ne\v 
Constitution. Marshalling of Parties. The Jacobin club.— 15. Its character. Its 
leaders. Mirabeau. His character, and death.— 16. The Emigrant Nobility. [Coblentz.] 
Attempted escape of the royal family, 179J. The king swears to support the new con- 
stitution. Dissolution of the "Constituent Assembly."— 17. The "Legislative Assembly." 
Chief parties in it. Growing influence of the Jacobins.— 18, First acts of the legislative assem- 
bly. Object of the Girondists. Demands of the Austrian emperor. War declared against 
Austria, 1792. Real causes of the war. — 19. Collection of forces, and invasion of France. 
The effects produced in France. — 20, Massacre of the 10th of August. Acts of the As- 
sembly. Flight of La Fayette. Dumouriez.— 21. Massacres of September.— 22. Victories 
of the French. [Jemappes. Marseilles Hymn.]— 23. Decree of the National Convention. 
Trial and execution of Louis XVI. 

[1793.] 24. Fall of the Girondists.— 25. Rule of the Jacobins.— 26. The Reign of 
Terror. Execution of the queen. Triumph of Infidelity.— 27. Divisions among the Jacobin 
leaders. Fall of the Dantonists.— 28. War against Europe.— 29. Defection of Du- 
mouriez.— 30. Fateof Custine.— 31. War on the Spanish frontier. In other quarters.— 32. In- 
surrection OF La Vendee. Victory of the Vendeans at Saumur, and defeat at Nantes. 
[Saumur.] Repeated defeats of the Republicans. [Torfou.]— 33. Cruelties of the Republicans. 
The Vendeans cross into Brittany. [Cholet. Chateau Gonthier,]— 34. Closing scenes of the 
Vendean war, [Granville. Mans. Savenay. The Vendean leaders.]- 35. Insurrections in 
the south of France, Marseilles and Lyons.— 36, Siege of Toulon. Napoleon Bonaparte, 
—37. Results of the campaign of 1793. 

[1794.] 38. Progress of the Revolution after the fall of Danton.— 39. Fall of Robespierre, 
and end of the Reign of Terror.— 40. Military condition of France.— 41. The English vic- 
torious AT sea, and the French on the land. [Biscay.]— 42. Second partition of Po- 
land.— 43. Third partition of Poland. 

[1795.] 44. Dissolution of the first coalition against France. Austria, England, 
and Russia.— 45. Internal condition of France. The New Constitution.— 46. Insurrection 
in Paris, suppressed by Napoleon.— 47. Military events of 1795. 

[1706.] 48. Invasion of Germany by Jordan and Moreau. — 49. The Army of Italy. Victo- 
ries of Napoleon. [Montenotte, Millcssimo. Lodi. Arcole. Mantua.]— 50. Disturbances 
IN England. Spain. English supremacy at sea. French invasion of Ireland. 

[1797.] 51. Napoleon's Austrian campaign. Treaty of Campo Formio. [Campo For- 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 401 

mio.] Losses of Italy. 52. Strife of parlies, and Establishment of Military Despotism in 
France. 

[J798.] 53. Preparations for the invasion of England. Expedition to Egypt. — 54. 
Preparations for the expedition. — 55. Surrender of Malta. [Malta.] Storming of Alexandria. — 
5G. Policy of Napoleon. [The Arab population. Cairo.] Battle of the Pyramids.— 57. 
Battle of the Nile. — 58. Remarkable energy of Napoleon. Conquest of Upper Egypt. 
[1709.] Syrian Expedition. — 59. Siege of Acre. [Mount Tabor.] Battle of Mount 
Tabor. [Nazareth.] — 60. Return of Napoleon to Egypt. Battle of Aboukir. — 61. State of 
affairs in Europe. — 62. Napoleon's return to France. Overthrow of the Directory. [St. 
Cloud.] Napoleon First Consul. Changes of the Revolution. 

1. War of the Spanish succession, and close of the reign of 
Louis XIV. — 1. The war which ended in the treaty of Ryswick had 
not humbled the pride of Louis XIV., whose ambition soon involved 
Europe in another war, known in history as the "War of the Spanish 
succession." The immediate events that led to the war were the 
following. On the death of Charles the Second of Spain, in the 
year 1700, the two claimants of the Spanish throne were the arch- 
duke Charles of Austria, and Philip of Anjou, nephew of the French 
monarch. Both these princes endeavored, by their emissaries, to 
obtain from Charles, then on a sick bed, a declaration in favor of their 
respective pretensions ; but although the Spanish monarch was strong- 
ly in favor of th-e claims of the arch-duke his kinsman, 

the gold and the promises of Louis prevailed with the geumany * 
Spanish nobles to induce their sovereign to assign by and hol- 
will, to the duke of Anjou, the undivided sovereignty of pl^re war 
the Spanish dominions. The arch-duke resolved to sup- against 
port his claims by the sword, while the possible and not ^fi^Qo^' 
improbable union of the crowns of France and Spain in 
the person of Philip, after the death of Louis, was looked upon by 
England, G-ermany, and Holland, as an event highly dangerous to the 
safety of those nations ; and on the 15th of May, 1702, these three 
powers declared war against France, in support of the claims of the 
arch-duke to the Spanish succession. 

2. It was, doubtless, of very little importance to England, whether 
an Austrian or a French prince became monarch of Spain ; but 
when, on the death of the exiled James II., his son was acknowl- 
edged king of England by the French court, the act was regarded 
as an insult and a defiance to Great Britain ; the national animosity 
was aroused, and king William engaged strenuously in the work of 
forming a league against the ambition of France. England, Holland, 
and Austria, were the leading powers of the coalition, while France 
was aided by Bavaria alone. Already William was preparing to 

26 



402 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

take the field in person at the head of the allies, when a fall from 
his horse occasioned a fever, which terminated his life in May 1702. 
Queen Anne, who next ascended the throne of Great Britain, de- 
clared her resolution to adhere to the policy of her predecessor. 

3. The emperor of Austria began the war by pouring into Italy a 
large army under the command of Prince Eugene, a Frenchman by 
birth, who had early entered the Austrian service, where he had 
gained distinction in the wars of the Turks. At the same time the 
lEnglish duke of Marlborough, intrusted with the chief command of 
the Dutch and English forces, entered on the campaign in Flanders. 
To these generals was at first opposed marshal Villars; but the 
complaints of the elector of Bavaria against him induced that able 
general to resign his command. Marsin, Tallard, and Yilleroy, suc- 
ceeded him ; but the French generals, brought up under the despotic 
authority of Louis, who required in his officers the quality of sub- 
mission as well as the talent for command, were unable to cope with 
Marlborough and Eugene, who had been bred in a school that en- 
couraged the development of talent, by allowing a greater indepen- 
dence of character. 

4. The campaign of 1 702 passed without any remarkable results : 
II. THE Marlborough took a few towns in Flanders, and Eugene 

CAMPAIGN in northern Italy, but on the Rhine the French gained 

"■ some successes : at sea a combined Dutch and English 

fleet failed in an attack on Cadiz, ^ but succeeded in capturing and 

destroying, in Vigo Bay,'^ a French and Spanish fleet that had taken 

shelter there, laden with the treasures of Spanish America. 

Ill EVENTS 

OF 1703. ^^ *^^ spring of 1703 tlie French succeeded in breaking 
through the lines of the allies on the Rhine, thus trans- 
ferring the seat of the war to the Danube, and making a threatening 
demonstration against Vienna itself 

5. In the spring of 1704 Marlborough, abandoning Flanders, 

marched to the relief of the Austrian emperor, and having 

OF 1704* joined prince Eugene, on the 13th of August, near the 

small village of Blenheim,' he won a decisive victory over 

the French and Bavarians. Each army numbered about eighty 

1 Cadiz is an important city and seaport of Andalusia, in southern Spain, sixty miles north- 
west from Gibraltar. It is a very ancient city, having been founded by the Carthaginians. 
(Map No. XIII.) 

2. yigo Bay is on the western coast of Spain, a little north of Portugal. 

:}. Blenheim is a small village of western Bavaria, on the Danube, thirty-three miles north- 
east from Ulm, {Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 403 

thousand men, and the vanquished lost thirty thousand in killed, 
wounded, and taken, while all their camp equipage, baggage, and ar- 
tillery, became the prize of the conquerors. The loss of the latter 
was about five thousand killed and eight thousand wounded. The 
results of this battle obliged the French to evacuate Germany al- 
together, abandon Bavaria, and retire behind the Khine. In the 
meantime the war continued in northern Italy ; Portugal joined the 
coalition ; the arch-duke Charles of Austria, aided by an English 
force, lauded in the Spanish peninsula ; and an English and Dutch 
fleet, commanded by Sir George Rooke, stormed the important fortress 
of Gibraltar,^ of which England has ever since retained the possession. 
6. The year 1705 passed away with varied success, the French 
obtaining many advantages in Italy, while the allies were ^_ events 
generally victorious in Spain and on the ocean. In 1706 of 

a French force again penetrated into Germany ; but the ' " ' 
main army, of about eighty thousand men, commanded by marshal 
Yilleroy, advancing into the Spanish Netherlands, was met by an 
inferior force under the duke of Marlborough, and utterly routed in 
the decisive battle of Ramillies.^ (May 23d, 1706.) The conse- 
quences of the battle were the loss, to France, of all the Spanish 
Netherlands, except the fortified towns of Mons^ and Namur. In 

L Oibr altar, the Calpe of the Greeks, formed, with Abyla on the African coast, the "Pillars 
of Hercules." The fortress stands on the west side of a mountainous promontory or rock, pro- 
jecting south into the sea about three miles, and being from one-half to three-quarters of a mile 
in breadth. The southern extremity of the rock is called Europa Point. The north side of the 
promontory, fronting the long narrow isthmus which coimects it with the main land, is per- 
pendicular, and wholly inaccessible. The east and south sides are steep and rugged, and ex- 
tremely difficult of access, so as to render any attack upon them, even if they were not for- 
tified, next to impossible, so that it is only on the west side, fronting the bay, where the 
rock declines to the sea, and the town is built, that it can be attacked with the faintest pros- 
pect of success. Here the fortifications are of extraordinary extent and strength. The princi- 
pal batteries are so constructed as to prevent any mischief from the explosion of shells. Vast 
galleries have been excavated in the solid rock, and mounted with heavy cannon ; and com- 
munications have been established between the different batteries by passages cut in the rock 
to protect the trc)0ps from the enemy's fire . 

At Gibraltar, the Arabians first landed in Spain, in the year 711. It was taken from them in 
1302: in 1333 they retook it, but Avere finally deprived of it in 1462 by Henry IV. of Spain. 
August 4th 1704 the British captured it, since which time it has been repeatedly besieged and 
assaulted, but without success. In 1729 Spain offered two millions sterling for the place, but 
in vain. The last attempt made for its recovery was by France and Spain combined, in 1779, 
during the war with England which grew out of the American Revolution. Eighty thousand 
barrels of gunpowder were provided for the occasion, and more than one hundred thousand 
men were employed, by land and sea, against the fortress. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. Ramillies is a small village of Belgium, twenty-eight miles south-east from Brussels. {Map 
No. XV.) 

3. Mons is a fortified town of Belgium, thirty-two miles south-west from Brussels. {Map 
No. XV.) 



4i4 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

other quarters the campaign was equally disastrous to Louis. Bar- 
celona^ surrendered to the English ; even Madrid'' submitted to the 
allies ; and prince Eugene, breaking through the French lines at 
Turin, drove the enemy from Italy. 

7. Louis now made overtures of peace ; but the allies, hoping to 

reduce him lower, would not listen to them. The cam- 

VI. CAM- ^ . 

PAiGNOF paign of 1707 in a measure revived his sinking fortunes. 

1707. Q^ i\^Q plain of Almanza" the French won a victory over 

the allies, as complete as any that had been obtained during the war. 

(April 1707.) This victory established Philip of Anjou oi; the 

throne of Spain. In the same year prince Eugene was foiled in an 

attempt on the port of Toulon.^ In the following year, however, 

(1708,) Marlborough and Eugene defeated a powerful 

^" Wo8^ French army near the village of Oudenarde,^ in Flanders, 

and recovered Ghent and Bruges,® which, a short time 

before, had been surprised by the French. Again the frontier of 

France lay completely open. 

8. The year 1709 commenced with one of the most rigorous 

winters ever known. Olives and vines, and many fruit 
trees perished ; the sown grain was destroyed, and every- 
thing portended a general famine. The French populace began to 

1. Barcelona^ the capital of Catalonia, is a city and seaport of Spain, on the Mediterranean, 
three hundred and fifteen miles north-east from Madrid. It is supposed to have been founded 
by the Carthaginians about two hundred years before the Christian era, and to have been 
named from its founder Hamilcar Barcino. {Map No. XIH.) 

2. Madrid, the modern capital of Spain, is in the centre of the kingdom, and occupies the 
site of the ancient Mantua Carpetanorum, a fortified town belonging to the Carpetani. It was af- 
terwards called Majoritum, and was taken and sacked by the Moors, who gave it its present 
name. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. Almanza is a town of Spain in the northern part of the province of Murcia, ninety-threo 
miles north-west from Carthagena. In the battle fought in the neighborhood of this town 
April 25th, 1707, the French were commanded by tlie duke of Berwick. The allies, in the in- 
terest of the arch-duke Charles, lost five thousand men killed on the field, and nearly ten thou- 
sand taken prisoners. {Map No. XIII.) 

4. Toulon, the first naval port in France, is on the Mediterranean coast, thirty-two miles 
south-east from IMarseilles. The town is strongly fortified, and has an excellent harbor. It is 
wholly indebted for its importance as a great naval port, and strong military position, to Louis 
XIV., who expended vast sums on its fortifications, and on the arsenal and harbor. {Map No. 
XIII.) 

5. Oudenarde is a town of Belgium thirty-three miles west from Brussels. In the battle of 
July llth, 1708, the dukes of Brunswick and Vendome commanded the French army. {Map 
No. XV.) 

6. Bruges is a town of Belgium, seven miles from the sea, and sixty miles north-west from 
Brussels. At a very early period Bruges was a prosperous seat of manufacturing and com- 
mercial industry. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was the central empori- 
um of the whole commercial world, and, as the leading city of the Hanseatic confederacy, had 
resident consuls and ministers from every kingdom in Europe. (Map No. XV.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 405 

clamor from present sufferings, and the dismal prospect before them ; 
but when the French parliament proposed to appoint deputies to 
visit the provinces, buy corn, and watch over the public peace, the 
haughty monarch reprimanded them, and told them they had as 
little to do with corn as with taxation. The magistrates were silent, 
and desisted from farther interference with the claims of the royal 
prerogative. 

9. With the finances in disorder, commerce ruined, and agricul- 
ture at a stand, Louis sought peace with Holland ; but the States, 
slighting his envoys and his offers, repaid him all his patt insults and 
pride, and he was compelled to resume the war, or submit to conces- 
sions degrading to himself and the nation. Again the chief command 
of the French armies was given to marshal Villars, who fought with 
the allies the battle of Malplaquet' (Sept. 1 1th, 1709) ; but although 
the latter lost the greatest number of men, the French lost the 
honor of the day by being driven from the position which they had 
chosen. The situation of Louis became desperate, when again the 
successes of his arms in Spain restored him to security and confi- 
dence ; but domestic misfortune fell upon him, and humbled his 
pride more than all his military reverses had done. Most of the 
near relatives of the king were cut off by sudden death, — since at- 
tributed to the small pox, but then ascribed to the agency of poison. 

10. While these clouds were lowering upon France and her mon- 
arch, an unexpected event changed the situations and views of all 
parties. Early in 1711, the death of the emperor of Austria without 
issue, and the succession of the arch-duke Charles, the claimant of 
the Spanish crown, to the sovereignty of Austria, threatened a union 
of the crowns of Spain and Austria in the person of one individual, — 
an event looked upon with as much dread as the union of France and 
Spain in the person of Philip of Anjou. From this period the war 
languished ; and when, by a change in English politics, Marlborough, 
who had supported, so nobly, the glory of England, was disgraced, 
and deprived of his command, the influence and support which Eng- 
land had given to the war were taken away. 

11. Conferences opened at Utrecht in the early part of 1712, and 
on the 1 1th of April, 1713, the terms of a general peace were assented 

1, Malplaquet (mal-plah'-ka) is a small towa of France, near the border of Belgium, forty- 
three miles south-west from Brussels. la the battle fought here Sept. J 1th, 1709— the bloodiest 
in the '' War of the Spanish succession"— the allies were commanded by Marlborough and 
Eugene. The French army numbered seventy thousand ; the allies eighty thousand, Tho 
allies lost twenty thousand in killed, and the French about ten thousand. {Map No, XV.) 



4^^^ MODERN HISTORY. "[Part II. 

to bj all the belligerents except Austria. England was gratified 
by the demolition of the port of Dunkirk, in the cession 
OF of Gribraltar and Minorca/ together with Newfoundland," 
UTRECHT, Hudson's Bay Territory,^ and the island of St. Christo- 
pher.* Spain remained to Philip V. of Anjou, on his 
renouncing forever all right of succession to the crown of France. 
The treaty of Radstadt,^ concluded in 1714 between France and 
Austria, completed that of Utrecht, and terminated the war, the 
Austrian emperor receiving Naples, Milan, and Sardinia, together 
with Spanish Flanders, in lieu of Spain, — the Spanish monarchy 
thus losing its possessions in Italy and the Netherlands. Louis re- 
tained the fortress of Lisle" and French Flanders, while the Rhine was 
acknowledged the frontier on the side of Alsace.'' 

12. The treaties of Utrecht and Radstadt were the closing politi- 
cal acts of the reicfn of Louis XI Y., who breathed his last 

X CHARAC" 

TER OF THE ^^ September 1715, after a reign of seventy-seven years, 
REIGN OF or fifty-four from the expiration of the regency. Louis 
was the most despotic monarch that ever reigned over a 
civilized people. In the condition of France at the time of his ac- 
cession, despotism was perhaps the only remedy against anarchy, 
and it marks an overmastering spirit that the will of the monarch 
alone was able to bend all minds to his purposes. The nobility 
stood submissive before the throne, — the people, in silence and suf- 
fering, fiir beneath it. But the reign of Louis has shown that des- 
j)otism is not compatible with modern civilization, for everything 
was frozen under its chilling touch ; and although letters flourished 

1. Minorca. See Balearic Isles, p. 152. 

2. JVewfoundlaJid, a large island of North America, off the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is celebrated 
for its fisheries. Since the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, it has remained in the possession of 
England. 

3. IIudson''t, Bay Territory embraced a large but indefinite extent of country, mostly on the 
west side of Hudson's Bay. The Hudson's Bay Company has long monopolized nearly all the 
fur trade of British North America. 

4. St. Christopher'' s is an island of the West Indies, nearly two hundred miles south-east from 
rorto Rico. It was discovered and named by Columbus, but was first settled by the English 
in 1623. 

5. Radstadt is a small Austrian town one hundred and forty-flve miles south-west from 
Vienna. {Map No. XVIl.) 

0. Lisle is a strongly-fortified city of France, near the Belgian frontier, one hundred and 
twenty-four miles north-east from Paris. Lisle is supposed to have been founded in GIO. it 
successively belonged lo the counts of Flanders, the kings of France, and the dukes of Bur 
gundy. {Map No. XIII.) 

7. Msacc was an eastern province of France, on the Rhine, in ancient times it was a Ger- 
man duchy, and the inhabitants still speak Geraian. Strasburg is the chief city. {Alap No, 
XIII.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 407 

among the favored few, there was no prosperity, no learning, no life, 
among the people ; and had the progress of science, and the devel- 
opment of intellect, been checked by the strong arm of authority, 
France would have needed nothing more to reduce her to a state of 
oriental simplicity and degradation. 

II. Petek. the Great of Russia, and Charles XII. of Sweden. — 
1. While the "war of the Spanish succession" enffaered 

^ O O I. THE NOETH 

the attention of the south and west of Europe, casting a and east 
shadow of gloom on the declining years of Louis XIV., °^ europe. 
the northern and eastern divisions of Christendom were occupied 
with the rivalry of two of the most extraordinary men that the 
world has ever known — Peter the Great of Russia, and Charles XII. 
of Sweden. In the preceding chapter we noticed the auspicious 
events which marked the beginning of the reign of the Russian 
monarch, just at the close of the seventeenth century, and which 
promised to his kingdom a rapid augmentation of power, and the 
opening of a new era in civilization. The results remain to be de- 
veloped in the present chapter. 

2. It was a leading object of the Czar,^ to make Russia a gi'eat 
commercial nation ; and for the success of his plans a free and unin- 
terrupted communication with the ocean, by way of the Baltic Sea, 
was deemed of the greatest importance ; but Sweden possessed the 
entire eastern coast of the Baltic, together with the gulfs of Finland 
and Livonia,^ thus hemming in the Czar in the only quarter where 
his ardent wishes might, otherwise, be accomplished. During his 
travels he had been rudely refused admission into the citadel of 
Riga,^ which had once belonged to Russia ; and this circumstance 
afforded him a sufficient pretext for engaging in a war with Sweden 
for the recovery of that valuable seaport. The kings of Denmark 
and Poland, both of whom had suffered from the Swedish arms, were 
easily induced to form an alliance with the Czar for dividing between 
themselves the possessions wrested from their predecessors. 

3. Sweden was at this time (1700) governed by Charles XII., a 
prince only eighteen years of age who was reported by the ministers 

1. Finland and I.iuonia aretlieiwo eastern gulfs of the Bailie. St. Pelersburg, at tlie eastern 
extremity of the former, and Riga, near the head of the latter, are now the two most important 
cities and ports in the Russian dominions. 

2. Riga is a str:)ngly-fortified city of Russia, situated on the river Dwina, nine miles from its 
entrance into tlie Gulf of Livonia. Population, seventy thousand. 

a. The title given by the Russians to their king, and pronounced Tzar. 



408 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

of foreign courts to be of a haughty and indolent disposition, and 
who had thus far shown no inclination for public business, nor evinced 
any ardor for military pursuits. But Charles was neither known to 
others nor did he know himself until the storm that suddenly arose 
in the north gave him an opportunity of displaying his concealed 
talents. While the Swedish council, alarmed by the dangers which 
threatened the country, were debating in his presence the terms ot 
an accommodation with their enemies, the young prince suddenly 
arose, and with a grave and determined air declared that his resolu- 
tion was fixed ; — " that he would never enter upon an unjust war, but 
that he would attack any power that evinced hostile intentions, and 
that, in the present instance, he hoped to conquer the first enemy and 
to strike terror into the rest." From that moment Charles renounced 
his former indolent habits and frivolous amusements, and, placing 
before himself the characters of Alexander and Caesar, resolved to 
imitate those heroes in everything but their vices. The vain and 
trifling boy suddenly became the stern, vigilant, and ambitious soldier 
of fortune. 

4. Almost simultaneously, early in the year 1700, the Czar and 
II. BEGIN- his allies began hostilities by invading the Swedish terri- 
NiNG OF tories. The Danes fell upon Sleswick,' a city of Hol- 

HOSTILITIES .p. n n i ii- P-r»ii' i 

AGAINST stem, friendly to Sweden ; the kmg oi Poland mvested 
SWEDEN. E-iga ; while the Czar, with eighty thousand men, laid 
siege to Narva.^ Attacked by so many foes at once, Charles placed 
himself at the head of his armies, and directed his first efforts against 
the Danes, whom he compelled to purchase the safety of Copenhagen,* 
their capital, by the payment of four hundred thousand dollars, and 
soon after to sign a peace, by which Charles was indemnified for all 
the expenses of the war. Thus the youthful Swede, by his vigorous 
conduct, humbled a powerful adversary in a campaign of six weeks, 

1. Sleswick, now included in the duchy of the same name, is a city and seaport town of Den- 
mark, seventy miles north-west from Hamburg. Holstein is the southern duchy or province 
of Denmark, extending to the Elbe, and having the duchy of Sleswick on the north. At the 
period above-mentioned the city of Sleswick was included in the territories of the duke of 
Holshein, who, having married a sister of Charles XII., and being oppressed by the king of 
Denmark his master, had fled to Stockholm to implore assistance. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. JSTarva is a small town of Russia on the river Narova, eight miles from its entrance into 
the Gulf of Livonia, and eighty-one miles south-west from St. Petersburg. 

3. Copenhaffen, the capital of Denmark, is a well-fortifled city, built principally on the eastern 
coast of the island of Zealand, and partly also on the contiguous small island of Araak, the 
chamiel between them forming the port. It was founded in 1168. Its environs are celebrated 
for their beauty. (Map No. XIV.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 409 

and rendered his own name, at the age of eighteen, the terror of the 
North, and the admiration of Europe. 

5. In the meantime the king of Poland, who had laid siege to 
Riga, being thwarted by the activity of its veteran commander, the 
same who had refused the Czar permission to enter the citadel, 
availed himself of a plausible pretext for withdrawing his forces. 
Charles was now left at liberty to turn his attention to the most pow- 
erful of the confederates, the Russian monarch, who, at the head of 
eighty thousand men and one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, had 
been engaged ten weeks in besieging the town of Narva, which was 
defended by a garrison of scarcely one thousand soldiers. 

6. In the month of November Charles landed on the coast with 
only twenty thousand men, and proceeded rapidly towards 

the town, at the head of less than one-half of his actual q^ ^3^ 
force, driving before him more than thirty thousand Russians 
Russians who had been sent out to impede his march. 
Scarcely allowing his weary troops a moment's repose, and without 
waiting for the remainder of his little army, Charles resolved to 
attack the enemy in their intrenchments : in three hours the camp 
was forced on all sides : eighteen thousand Russians were killed, be- 
sides a great number drowned in attempting to cross the river ; and 
on the next day thirty thousand who had surrendered were dismissed 
to their homes. (Nov. 30th. Dec. 1st, 1700.) This extraordinary 
victory did not cost the Swedes over six hundred men. When the 
Czar, who was absent from Narva at the time, heard of this disaster, 
he was not disheartened, but attributing the result to the right cause, 
the ignorance and barbarism of his subjects, he said : — " I know very 
well that the Swedes will have the advantage of us for a considerable 
time ; but they will at length teach us to become conquerors." The 
ignorant Russians, unable to account for a victory gained by human 
means, over such disparity of numbers, imagined the Swedes to be 
magicians and sorcerers ; and a form of prayer, composed by a Rus- 
sian bishop, was read in their churches, imploring St. Nicholas, the 
patron of Muscovy, to be their champion in future, and to drive the 
troop of Northern wizards away from their frontiers. 

7. But Peter, disregarding both St. Nicholas and the priests, pur- 
sued steadily the course which he had marked out, and, withdrawing 
to his own dominions, occupied his time in equij^ping a fleet, in re- 
cruiting and disciplining a new army, in carrying out his project of 
uniting the Baltic, Caspian, and Euxine seas, and in introducing nu- 



410 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet IL 

merous improvements for civilizing his barbarous subjects. Charles, 
on the contrary, neglectful of the welfare of his own country, and of 
the proceedings of the Czar, had resolved never to return home until 
he had driven from the throne of Poland the newly-elected sovereign, 
and ally of Peter, Augustus of Saxony. 

8. Having wintered at Narva, Charles next drove the Poles and 
Saxons from Higa, defeated his enemies on the western bank of the 

Dwina, overran Courland^ and Lithuania, entered War- 

OF CHARLES ^^^^ without opposltiou, and at length, in July 1702, 

IN THE YEAH defeated Augustus in a bloody battle fought on a vast 

plain between Warsaw and Cracow.' A second victory 

gained by Charles at Pultusk* in the following year (May 1st, 1703) 

completed the humiliation of Augustus, who was formally deposed 

by the Polish diet, while the crown was soon after given to Stanislaus 

Leczinski, who had been nominated by the king of Sweden. (January 

1704.) Charles, at the head of a victorious army, might easily have 

assumed the sovereignty of Poland, to which he was advised by his 

ministers, but he declared that he felt more pleasure in bestowing 

thrones upon others than in winning them for himself. 

9. Charles soon reduced the Saxon States, the hereditary domin- 
ions of the unfortunate Augustus ; his ships were masters of the 
Baltic ; Denmark, restrained by the late treaty, was prevented from 
offering any active interference with his plans ; the Grerman emperor, 
engaged in the War of the Spanish succession, was afraid of offend- 
ing him ; and a detachment of thirty thousand Swedes kept the 
Russians in check towards the east : so that the whole region from 

1. Courland is a province of Russia, on the Bailie coast, iiorlli of the ancient I^ilhuania, 
(See Lithuania, p. 312.) 

2. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, i3 on the west bank of the Vistula, six hundred and fifty 
miles southwest from St. Petersburg, and three hundred and thirly-ihree miles east from Berlin 
the Prussian capital. Population, about one hundred and forty thousand. In 1795, in the third 
partition of Poland, Warsaw was assigned to Prussia: in 180G it was made the capital of tho 
grand-duchy of Poland ; and in 1815 it became the capital of the new kingdom of Poland, that 
was united to the crown of Russia, but with a separate constitution and administration. 
Warsaw was the principal seat of the ill-fated Polish revolution of 1831. See p. 327. {Map 
No. XVII.) 

3. Cracow is on the north bank of the Vistula, one hundred and sixty miles south-west from 
Warsaw, and Iavo hundred north-east from Vienna. Previously to the seventeenth century 
Cracow was the metropolis of the kingdom of Poland. Most of the Polish kings, and many 
other illustrious men, have been buried in the cathedral of Cracow. Among others it con-tains 
the tombs of Casimir the Great, of John Sobieski the deliverer of Poland, and of the "last of 
the Poles," Kosciusko and Poniatowski. About a mile west of the city is an artificial mound 
of earth, one hundred and fifty feet in height, erected to the memory of Kosciusko. {Map No, 
XVII.) 

4. Pultusk is forty miles north of Warsaw, on the western bank of a small tributary of the 
Vistula. ( Map No XV II .) 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 411 

the German Ocean almost to the mouth of the Borysthenes,' and 
even to the gates of Moscow, was held in awe b}^ the sword of the 
conqueror. All Europe was filled with astonishment at the arbitrary 
manner in which he had deposed the king of Poland ; while in the 
meantime Charles himself was indulging in the most extravagant 
views of future conquests and glory. One year he thought sufficient 
for the conquest of Russia : the pope of Rome was next to feel his 
vengeance, for having dared to oppose the concession of religious lib- 
erty to the German Protestants, in whose behalf Charles had inter 
ested himself; and the youthful hero had even despatched officers 
privately into Egypt and Asia, to take plans of the towns, and ex- 
amine into the resources, of those countries. 

10. The Czar, in the meantime, had not been an idle spectator of 
the progress of the Swedish conqueror. By keeping large bodies of 
his troops actively engaged on the Swedish frontiers, he gradually 
accustomed them to the presence of the enemy, over whom he gained 
several little advantages ; and having driven the Swedes from both 
banks of the Neva,^ in the year 1701 he laid the foundations of St. 
Petersburg, in the heart of his new conquests, and by his judicious 
measures protected the rising city from the attacks of the Swedish 
generals. During the year 1704 he gained possession of all Ingria ;' 
the next year he entered Poland at the head of sixty thousand men ; 
but the advance of Charles from Saxony soon obliged him to retire 
again towards the Russian territories. 

11. In the autumn of 1707, Charles began his march eastward, 
with the avowed obiect of the conquest of Russia, driving 

. , ^ f> 1 -ni • ^''- MARCH OF 

the Russians back to the eastern banks or the Dnieper, ciiarles 
then the dividing line between Russia and Poland. The ^^'^'^ 
Czar, seeing his own dominions threatened with war, 
which must put a stop to the vast plans which he had formed for the 
improvement of his people, now oflPered terms of peace, but Charles, 
intoxicated with success, only replied, " I will treat at Moscow." 
Peter, resolving not to act the part of another Darius, wisely deter- 
mined to check the career of the invaders by breaking up the roads 



1. Borystkenes, see Dnieper, p. 309. 

2. The JVeva is the stream by which Lake Ladoga discharges its surplus waters into the Gulf 
of Finland. St. Petersburg is built at its entrance into the Gulf. 

3. Ingria was a province extending about one hundred and thirty miles along the southern 
bank of the Neva and the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland. In 1617 the Swedes took it 
from the Russians, but in 1700 the latter reconquered a part of it, and in 1703 built St. Peters- 
burg within its limits. 



412 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

and desolating the country ; and Charles, after crossing the Dnieper, 
and penetrating almost to Smolensko,^ found it impracticable to con- 
tinue his march in the direction of the Russian capital. (1708.) His 
army, exposed to the risk of famine, and the incessant attacks of the 
enemy, was slowly wasting away ; yet, instead of falling back upon 
Poland, he adopted the extraordinary resolution of passing into the 
Ukraine, whither he had been invited by Mazeppa, a Pole by birth, 
and chief of the Cossacks, but who had resolved to throw off his al- 
legiance to the Czar, his master. 

12. A march of twelve days, amid almost incredible and unpar- 
alleled hardships, brought the Swedes to the river Desna,' where 
Charles expected to meet his new ally with a body of thirty thousand 
men ; but, instead of this, ho was compelled to force the passage of 
the stream against a Russian army. The Czar, having been in- 
formed of the treason of Mazeppa, had disconcerted his schemes by 
the punishment of his associates ; and the unfortunate chief appeared 
in the Swedish army rather as a fugitive than as a powerful prince 
bringing succors to his ally. Charles soon after learned of a still 
greater misfortune that had befallen him, the loss of a large convoy 
and reenforcement expected from Poland. 

13. In the midst of one of the severest winters ever known in 
Europe, (1708-9) the small Swedish army, now reduced to less than 
twenty thousand men, found itself in the midst of a hostile and al- 
most desolate country, cut off from all resources, and threatened 
with an attack from nearly a hundred thousand Prussians, who were 
gradually concentrating upon their victims. Yet the iron heart of 
the Swede did not a moment relent at the sufferings of his soldiers, 
although in one day he beheld two thousand of them drop dead be- 
fore him, from the effects of cold and hunger ; nor had he relinquished 
the design of penetrating to Moscow. On the opening of spring he 
advanced to the town and fortress of Pultowa,^ in the hope of seiz- 
ing the magazines of the Czar, and opening a passage into the heart 
of the Russian territory. 

14. Toward the end of May Charles invested Pultowa, but while 

1. Smolensico is a Russian town on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, two hundred and thirty 
miles south-west from Moscow. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. The Desna is an eastern tributary of the Dnieper, which enters that river a little above 
Kiev. (JMaj} No. XVII.) 

3. Pultowa is a fortified town of Russia, on the river Worskla, an eas,tern tributary of the 
Dnieper, two hundred miles south-east from Kiev, and four hundred and fifty south-west from 
Moscow. In commemoration of the victory of Pultowa llie Russians have erected a column in 
the oily, and an obiJlisk on the field of battle. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 413 

he was pressing the siege with great vigor, on the 15th of June the 
Czar appeared before the place with an army seventy 
thousand strong, and, in spite of the exertions of the ^J pultowa 
Swedes, succeeded in throwing a strong reenforcement 
into the place. When Charles discovered the manoeuvre by which 
this had been effected, he could not forbear saying, " I see well that 
we have taught the Muscovites the art of war." On the eighth of 
July a general action was brought on between the two armies, the 
Czar commanding his troops in person, while Charles, unable to walk, 
owing to a severe wound he had some days before received in the 
heel, was carried about the field in a litter, with a pistol in one hand 
and his drawn sword in the other. The desperate charge of the 
Swedes broke the Russian cavalry, but the Russian infantry acted 
with great steadiness, and restored the honor of the day. The Czar 
received a musket ball through his hat ; his favorite general, Menzi 
koff, had three horses killed under him ; and the litter in which 
Charles was carried was shattered in pieces by a cannon ball. But 
neither the courage nor the discipline of the Swedes could avail against 
the overwhelming numbers of their antagonists ; and after a dread- 
ful battle of two hours' duration the Swedish army was irretrievably 
ruined. Charles escaped with about three hundred horsemen to the 
Turkish town of Bender,^ abandoning all his treasures to his rival, 
including the rich spoils of Poland and Saxony.^ 

15. Thus in one day the king of Sweden lost the fruits of nearly 
a hundred victories, and nine years of successful warfare. Nearly 

1. Bender is now a Russian town, on the Dniester, in the province of Bessarabia, about flfty- 
eight miles from the Black Sea. In 1770 the Russians took this town by storm, and reduced it 
to ashes. Four years later it was restored to Turkey, but was reconquered by the Russians in 
]809, and was finally ceded to them, with the province of Bessarabia, by the treaty of Bucha- 
rest, in 1812. {Map No. XVII.) 

a. The catastrophe of Pultowa is thus powerfully described by Campbell : 
" Oh ! learn the fate that bleeding thousands bore. 
Led by their Charles to Dnieper's sandy shore. 
Faint from his wounds, and shivering in the blast, 
The Swedish soldier sank and groaned his last ; 
File after file the stormy showers benumb. 
Freeze every standard sheet, and hush the drum ; 
Horseman and horse confessed the bitter pang, 
And arms and warrior fell with hollow clang : 
Yet, ere he sank m Nature's last repose. 
Ere life's warm current to the fountain froze, 
The dying man to Sweden turned his eye, 
Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh. 
Imperial pride looked sullen on his plight. 
And Charles beheld, nor shuddered at the sight. 



414 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

all Europe felt the effects of the battle of Pultowa : the Saxona 
called for revenge on a prince who had pillaged and plundered their 
country : Augustus returned to Poland at the head of a Saxon army, 
while Stanislaus, knowing it was vain to resist, was unwilling to shed 
blood in a useless struggle : Denmark, Kussia, and Poland, entered 
into a league against Sweden, and but for the interference of the Ger- 
man emperor and the maritime powers, the Swedish monarchy would 
have been rent in pieces. 

16. Although Charles was now an exile from his coimtry, relying, 
for his support, upon the generosity of the Turkish sultan, yet he still en- 
tertained the romantic project of dethroning the Czar, and marching 
back to Sweden at the head of a victorious army. He endeavored to raise 

the Turks against his enemies ; and his prospects grew 
^^I'JJt^ bright or dark according as the wavering policy of the 
Turkish divan was swayed by his intrigues, or by the 
gold of Russia. At one time the vizier promised to conduct him to 
Moscow at the head of two hundred thousand men : war was declared 
aojainst Russia ; and the forces of the two nations were assembled on 
the banks of the Pruth.^ (July 1711.) Here the Russian army, 
surrounded by a greatly superior Turkish force, lost, in four days' 
fighting, more than sixteen thousand men, when by the resolute sa- 
gacity of the empress Catherine, who accompanied her husband 
during the campaign, a secret treaty was concluded with the Turkish 
commander, and Peter was rescued from the same fate that had be- 
fallen his antagonist at Pultowa. 

17. The Swedish monarch continued to linger in Turkey until 
1714, still flattering himself that he should yet lead an Ottoman 
army into Russia. Being at length dismissed by the sultan, and 
ordered to depart, he still resolved to remain ; and arming his secre- 
taries, valets, cooks, and grooms, in addition to his three hundred 
guards, he bade defiance to a Turkish army of twenty-six thousand 
men. After a fierce resistance, in which many of his attendants 
were slain, he was captured, the Turks being careful not to endanger 
his life. Another revolution in the Turkish divan revived the hopes 
of Charles, and prolonged his stay ; but when he learned that the 
Swedish senate intended to create a regent in his absence, and 

1. The Pruth, rising in Gallicia, forms the boundary between Bessarabia and Moldavia, and 
enters the Danube about fifty miles from the Black Sea. By the treaty of Adrianople in 1829, 
it was stipulated that the Pruth should continue to form the boundary between the Russian 
and Turkish territories. {Map No. XVII.) 



CsapV.] eighteenth century. 415 

make peace with Denmark and Russia, his indignation at sucli pro- 
ceedings induced him to return home. He was honorably 
escorted to the Turkish frontiers ; but although orders op^cy^j^LKs" 
had been given that he should be treated in the Austrian 
and German dominions with all due honor, he chose to travel in the 
disguise of a courier, and toward the close of November 1714 reached 
Stralsund, the capital of Swedish Pomerania. 

18. At the time of the return of Charles, Sweden was in a truly 
deplorable condition, — surrounded by enemies — without money, trade, 
or credit — her foreign provinces lost, and one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand of her best soldiers slaves in Turkey and Siberia, or locked up in the 
fortresses of Denmark and Poland. Yet Charles, instead of seeking 
that peace which his kingdom so much needed, immediately issued 
orders for renewing the war with redoubled vigor. During 
the year 1715, the Danish and Russian fleets swept the ^o^YtiV^ 
Baltic^ and threatened Stockholm ;^ and Stralsund, 
though defended by Charles with his accustomed bravery, was com- 
pelled to surrender after a siege of two months. On the night be- 
fore the surrender Charles made his escape in a small boat, safely 
passing the batteries and fleets of the allies. In the following year 
he made an irruption into Norway, but his army was driven back 
greatly diminished in numbers. His attention was nest occupied 
with the scheme of his favorite minister, Baron G-ortz, for uniting 
the kings of Sweden and Prussia in strict amity, and then dictating 
the law to Europe. The plot embraced the restoration of Stanislaus 
to the throne of Poland, and Charles was to have the command of a 
combined Swedish and Russian army of invasion, for establishing the 
Pretender (son of James 11.) on the throne of England. The Czar 
seemed not averse to the project, and a conference of the ministers 
of the two nations had already been appointed for making the final 
arrangements, when the death of the king of Sweden rendered abor- 
tive a revolution that might have thrown all Europe into a state of 
political combustion. In the autumn of 1718 Charles 
had invaded Norway a second time, and laid siege to q^^^h^^les 
Frederickshall ]^ but while engaged in viewing the works 

1. Stockholm^ the capital city, and principal commercial emporium of Sweden, is built partly 
on a number of islands and partly on the main land, at the junction of the Lake Slajlar with 
the Baltic, four hundred and forty miles a little south of west from St. Petersburg. It was 
founded in the thirteenth centur}^, but was not recognized a« the capital till the seventeenth, 
previously to which Upsala had been the seat of the court. (Map No. XIV.) 

2. Frederickshall is a maritime town of Norway, near the north-east angle of the Skagger- 
rack, fifty-seven miles south-east from Christiana. The town spreads irregularly around a per- 



416 MODERN HISTORY. [PaetIL 

ia tlie midst of a tremendous fire from the enemy, he was struck 
dead by a ball from the Danish batteries. (Dee. 1718.) 

19. The death of Charles produced an entire change in the affairs 
of Sweden. The late king's sister was declared queen by the volun- 
tary choice of the States of the kingdom ; but the last reign had 
taught them a severe lesson, and they compelled their new sovereign 
to take a solemn oath that she would never attempt the establish- 
ment of arbitrary power. The project of a union with Russia was 
at once abandoned, and the new government united its forces to those 
of England against the Czar. For a while the Russian fleet desolat- 
ed the coasts of Sweden, but in 1721 peace was established between 
the two powers by the treaty of Nystad.^ Russia gained thereby a 
large accession of territory on the shores of the Baltic, and dominion 
over the Gulf of Finland, which Peter had purchased as a highway 
of commerce to the ocean, with the toils and perils of twenty years of 
warfare. 

20. Charles the Twelfth, at the time of his death, was little more 

than thirty-six years of age, one-half of which had been 
^^' ^^^ spent amid the turmoil of arms, or wasted in foreign 

CHARACTER. ^ ... 

exile. War was his ruling passion ; but the only ob- 
ject of his conquests seemed to be the satisfaction of bestowing their 
fruits upon others, without any apparent wish to enlarge his own do- 
minions. After all his achievements, nought but the memory of his 
renown survives him ; for all the acts of his reign sprung from a 
misdirected ambition, and not one of them was conducive to the per- 
manent welfare of his country. " He was rather an extraordinary 
tlian a great man," says Yoltaire, " and more worthy to be admired 
than imitated. His life ought to be a lesson to kings, how much a 
pacific and happy government is preferable to so much glory." ^ 



pendicular rock four hundred feet in height, on which is tlie strong fortress of Frederickstein, 
at the siege of wliich Charles XII. was killed. 

It was doubted for awhile whether the king met his death by a ball from the fortress, or from 
an assassin in the rear ; but there seem to be no good grounds for supposing that treachery had 
anj;thing to do with the matter. Dr. Johnson has availed himself of the suspicion in his ad- 
mirable description of the character of the Swedish warrior. The hat, clothes, buff-belt, boots 
&c., which Charles wore when he was shot, are still preserved in the arsenal of Stockholm. 

J. Mystad is a town of Finland, on the eastern coast of the Baltic, one hundred and fifty 
miles north-east from Stockholm. 

a. The following is Dr. Johnson's description of the character of Charles XII. 
" On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide. 
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 
No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 417 

21. The Czar Peter, or, as he is usually called in history, Peter 
the Grreat, died in 1725, seven years after the death of xn. death 
his ffreat rival the kinff of Sweden. Through a life of ^^° 

..,,,-,„ , . , CHARACTER 

restless activity he labored tor the improvement and ^j, peter 
prosperity of his country ; and while Charles left behind the grkat. 
him nothing but ruins, Peter the Great may truly be regarded as the 
founder of an empire. The ruler of a barbarous people, he early 
saw the advantages of civilization, and by the measures ho adopt- 
ed for reforming his empire he truly merited the epithet of Great. 
Yet it has been truly said of him that although he civilized his sub- 
jects, he himself remained a barbarian ; for the sternness, or rather 
the ferocity, of his disposition, spared neither age nor sex, nor his dear- 
est connexions. So conscious was he of his frailties that he was accus- 
tomed to say, " I can reform my people, but I cannot reform myself" 
He never learned the lessons of humanity ; and his sublime but un- 
cultivated genius continually wandered without a guide. It is a high 
and just eulogium of his character to say that " his virtues were his 
own, and his defects those of education and country." 



O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain ; 

No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, 

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; 

Behold surrounded kings their powers combine, 

And one capitulate, and one resign ; 

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain : 

'Think nothing gained,' he cries ' till naught remain ; 

On Moscow's walls, till Gothic standards fly, 

And all be mine beneath the polar sky.' 

The march begins in military state. 

And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 

Stern famine guards the solitary coast. 

And winter barricades the realms of frost : 

He comes ; nor want, nor cold, his course delay ; 

Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day. 

The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands, 

And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 

Condemned a needy supplicant to wait 

While ladles interpose, .and slaves debate. 

But did not chance at length her error mend ? 

Did no subverted empire mark his end? 

Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? 

Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 

His fall was destined to a barren strand, 

A petty fortress, and a dubious hand : 

He left the name, at which the world grew pale, 

To pamt a moral, or adorn a tale." 



27 



418 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

III. Spanish Wars, and Wars of the Austrian Succession. — 
1. The treaty of Utrecht m 1713, which closed the war of the Spanish 

succession, had given pacification to southern and west- 
''Ill^anoe'' ®^'^ Europe, by defining the territorial limits of the 

belligerents in such a manner as to preserve that bal- 
ance of power on which the peace of Europe depended. The in- 
triguing efforts of Spain in contravention of that portion of the 
treaty by which Philip V. renounced forever all right of succession 
to the crown of France, induced England and Holland, in 1717, to 
unite with France in forming a Triple Alliance guaranteeing the ful- 
filment of the treaty ; but during the same year a Spanish fleet, 
entering the Mediterranean, quickly reduced the island of Sardinia, 
which had been assigned to Austria ; and in the following year an- 
other fleet and army captured Sicily, which had been adjudged to 
the duke of Savoy. These acts of aggression roused the resentment 
of Austria ; and by her accession to the terms of the Trij^le Alliance, 
the Quadruple Alliance was formed, for the purpose of putting a 
check to the ambition of Spain. A British squadron, under admiral 
Byng, sailed into the Mediterranean and destroyed the Spanish fleet, 
whilst an Austrian force passed into Sicily to contest with the Spanish 
army the sovereignty of that island. The successes of the allies soon 
compelled even Spain to accede to the terms of the Alliance for pre- 
serving the peace of Europe. 

2. In 1739, however, the general peace was interrupted by a war 

between England and Spain, growing out of the coin- 
BETWEEx mercial and colonial difficulties of the two nations. For 
ENGLAND a long tiuic Spain, claiming the right of sovereignty over 
AND si'AiN. ^^^ ^^^^ adjacent to her American possessions, which had 
been confirmed by successive treaties, had distressed and insulted 
the commerce of Great Britain by illegal seizures made under the 
pretext of the right of search for contraband goods ; while Britain, 
on the other hand, secretly encouraged a contraband traffic, little to 
her honor, and deeply injurious to Spain. War was first declared 
by England: the vessels of each nation in the ports of the other 
were confiscated ; and powerful armaments were fitted out by the one 
to seize, and by the other to defend, the Spanish American possess- 
ions, while pirates from Biscay harassed the home trade of England. 

3. While this war continued with various success, a general Euro- 
pean war broke out, called the " war of the Austrian succession," 
presenting a scene of the greatest confusion, and eclipsing, by its im- 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 419 

portance, the petty conflicts on the American seas. Charles VI., em- 
peror of Austria, the famous competitor of Philip for the throne of 
Spain, died in the autumn of 1740 ; and as he had no male 
issue he left his dominions to his eldest daughter, Maria "^' ^^^^^^ 

^ ' OF THE WAR 

Theresa, queen of Hungary, in accordance with a solemn of the 
ordinance called the Pramiiatic Sanction,' which had Austrian 
been confirmed by all the leading States of Europe. This 
sanction, however, did not secure his daughter, after his death, from 
the attacks of a host of enemies, who hoped to make good their 
pretensions, by force of arms, to different portions of her estates. 

4. The elector of Bavaria declared himself, by virtue of his descent 
from the eldest daughter of Ferdinand I., the proper heir of the 
hereditary Austrian provinces : the elector of Saxony, who was also 
Augustus III., king of Poland, made the same claims by virtue of a 
preceding marriage with the house of Saxony : Spain was anxious 
to appropriate to herself some of the Italian principalities, and vir- 
tually laid claim to the whole Austrian succession, while Frederick 
II., the young king of Prussia, marched suddenly into Silesia, and took 
possession of that country. France, swayed by hereditary hatred of 
Austria, sought a dismemberment of that empire ; while England 
offered her aid to Maria Theresa, the daughter of her ancient ally, 
to preserve the integrity of the Austrian dominions. 

5. The plan of the coalition against the Austrian queen embraced 
the elevation of Charles Albert, the electoral prince of 
Bavaria, to the sovereignty of all the German States ; coalition 
and accordingly, in the summer of 1741, two French against 
armies crossed the Rhine, and being joined by the Ba- 
varian forces, seized Prague, made several other important conquests, 
threatened Vienna, and compelled Maria Theresa to flee from her 
capital. In a diet held at Frankfort,'^ in Frebruary 1 742, the impe- 
rial crown, through the influence of France and Prussia, was given 
to Charles Albert. In the meantime Maria Theresa, crushed in 

i. Pragmatic Sanction. There are four ordinances with this title mentioned in history: Ist, 
tl'at of Charles VII. of France, in 1438, on which rest the liberties of the Gallican church : CU, 
tbe decree of the German diet in 1439, sanctioning the former : 3d, the ordinance of the German 
emperor Charles VI. in 1740, by which he endeavored to secure the succession to his female 
descendants, and which led to the war of the Austrian succession : and 4th, the ordinance by 
which Charles IlL of Spain, in 1759, ceded the throne of Naples to his third son and his posterity. 

2. Frankfort^ or Frankfurt-on-thc-Mayn^ is a celebrated commercial city of Germany, on the 
north bank of the Mayn, eighteen miles north-east from its confluence with the Rhine at 
Mayence. There is also a Frankfort-on-tke-Oicr, ninety-five miles north-east from Dresden, 
{Map No. XVII.) 



420 MODERN HISTORY. [Part EL 

everything but energy of spirit by the vast array against her, pre- 
sented herself, with her infant son, in the diet of the Hungarian 
nobles, and having first sworn to protect their independence, de- 
manded their aid in tones that her beauty and her tears rendered 
more persuasive. The swords of the Hungarians flashed in the air 
as their acclamations replied, " We will die for our sovereign Maria 
Theresa !" On the very day that Charles Albert was crowned at 
Frankfort, Munich,^ his own capital, fell into the hands of the Aus- 
trian general ; and while Bavaria was plundered, the new emperor 
was compelled to live in retirement far from his own dominions. In 

another quarter fortune was not equally favorable to 
^ v^4'x^" Austria ; and Maria Theresa was compelled to purchase 

peace of the Prussians by the surrender of Silesia. 
(June 1741.) This loss was compensated, however, by a successful 
blockade of Prague, then in the hands of the French, who were at 
length forced to a disastrous retreat, while England began to take a 
more active part in the war against France. The losses of France were 
great on the ocean ; and in 1743 George II. of England, advancing into 
Germany at the head of a powerful army, defeated the French at Dettin- 
gen,^ and compelled them to retreat across the Rhine. (June 1743.) 

6. The year 1 744 is distinguished by the renewal of hostilities on 

the part of Frederick, who, having formed an alliance 
with the king of France, entered Bohemia at the head 
of seventy thousand soldiers, and in the beginning of September sat 
down before Prague, which soon surrendered, and with it a garrison 
of eighteen thousand men. But misfortunes rapidly succeeded this 
brilliant beginning of the campaign ; the illness of Louis XV., king 
of France, prevented the promised diversion on the side of the Rhine ; 
and Frederick was eventually compelled to retreat to his own do- 
minions, with the loss of twenty thousand men. The king of Prussia 
acknowledged, in his own memoirs, that no general committed greater 
faults during the campaign than he did himself: and that the conduct 
of his opponent, the Austrian general, marshal Traun, was a model 
of perfection, which every military man would do well to study. 

7. The death of Charles Albert, early in January 1745, removed 

^ ^ all reasonable grounds for continuing the war ; but the 
national animosity between England and France prevent- 

1. Muv.ich 13 a large German city, the capital of Bavaria, on the Isar^ a southern branch of 
the Danube, two hundred and twenty miles west from Vienna.- It is called the "Athens of 
south Germany." {Map No, XVI f.) 

2. Detthifren is a small' village of llavaria, on (he Mayn, gixteen miles south-east of Frankfort 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 421 

ed the restoration of peace. .During the same year, the celebrated 
French general, marshal Saxe, obtained the victory of Fontenoy^ over 
the Austrians, and their Dutch and English allies commanded by the 
duke of Cumberland, and conquered the Austrian Netherlands and 
Dutch Flanders. The king of Prussia conducted a successful cam- 
paign in Silesia and Saxony, and in December concluded with Austria 
the treaty of Dresden, which confirmed him in the possession of Si- 
lesia. In the meantime the Grerman States had elected for their 
emperor Francis I., the husband of Maria Theresa, and in the treaty 
of Dresden he was formally acknowledged by Frederick. 

8. In Italy the combined armies of France, Spain, and Naples, 
obtained important advantages over the Austrians and Sardinians ; 
and at the close of the campaign they held possession of all Lom- 
bardy and Piedmont.^ During the same year, while the king of 
England was warring with the French in the Netherlands, his own 
dominions were invaded. The loss of the English at Fon- 
tenoy seemed to present to Charles Edward, grandson sign of 
of James II., commonly called the Young Pretender, kngland, 
a fit opportunity for attempting the restoration of his 
family to the throne of England. Being furnished by the French 
monarch with a supply of money and arms, at the head of a small 
force he landed, in July, on .the coast of Scotland, and being joined 
by many of the Highland clans, on tlie 16th of September he was 
enabled to take possession of Edinburgh,^ and a few days later de- 
feated the royal forces at Preston Pans.* In November he entered 

1. Fontenoy is a village of Belgium, in the province of Hainault (a-no), forty-three miles 
south-west from Brussels. The battle Avas fought April 30th, 1745. Voltaire's account of it, in 
his " Age of Louis XV.," is extremely interesting. (Map No. XV.) 

2. Piedmont^ (pied-de-monte, "foot of the mountain,") the principal province of the Sardinian 
monarchy, has the Swiss canton of Valais and the Sardinian province of Savoy, on the north, 
and Savoy and France on the west. Capital, Turin. In J802 Napoleon incorporated it with 
France, but it was restored in 1814. 

3. FAlinburgh, the metropolis of Scotland, county of Mid Lothian, is two miles south of the 
Frith of Forth, and three hundred and thirty-seven miles north-west from the city of London. 
It is principally built on three parallel ridges running east and west. At the western extremity 
of tJie central ridge, which is terminated by a precipitous rock four hundred and thirty-four 
feet above the level of the sea, is the castle ; and a mile distant, at the eastern extremity of the 
ridge, is the palace of Holyrood, one hundred and eiglit feet above the same level. The palace 
has a peculiar interest from the circumstance that the apartments occupied by the unfortunate 
Queen Mary have been carefully preserved in the state in which she left them. Connected 
with tlie palace, on the north, are the ruins of the abbey of Holyrood. Edinburgh is highly 
celebrated for its literary and educational institutions. {Map No. XVI.) 

4. Preston Pans is a small seaport town of Scotland, on the south shore of the Frith of Forth, 
seven and a-half miles east of Edinburgh. It derives its name from its having, for a length- 
ened period, had a number of salt works or pans for the production of salt by the evaporation 
of sea-water. {Map No. XVI.) 



422 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

England, and advanced to within a hundred miles of London, but 
was then compelled to retreat into Scotland, where, after having de- 
feated the royal forces a second time, his cause was utterly ruined by 
the decisive battle of CuUoden.^ (April 1746.) To the disgrace of 
the English, the surrounding country was given up to pillage and de- 
vastation. After a variety of adventures Charles reached France in 
safety ; but numbers of his unfortunate adherents perished on the 
scaffold, or by military execution, while multitudes were transported 
to the American plantations. 

9. During the year 1745 the important French fortress of Louis- 

burg, on the island of Cape Breton,^ was captured by 
m AMERICA *^® British and their colonial allies, an event which re- 
vived the spirits of the English, and roused France to a 
great vindictive effort for the recovery of Louisburg, and the devas- 
tation of the whole American coast from Nova Scotia to Georgia. 
Accordingly a powerful naval armament was sent out to America in 
1 746 ; but it was so enfeebled by storms and shipwrecks, and dispirit- 
ed by the loss of its commander, that nothing was accomplished by it. 

10. During the years 1746 and 1747 hostilities were carried on 

with various success by the French and the Spaniards on 
one side, and the English, Dutch, and Austrians, on the 
other. By sea the French lost almost their last ship ; but no im- 
portant naval battles were fought, as the English navy had scarcely 
a rival. On the continent, northern Italy and the Netherlands were 
the chief seats of the war. The French were driven from the former, 
and the Austrians and their allies from the latter. 

XI. TREATY . ^ 

OF Aix-LA- France made frequent overtures of peace, and m Octo- 
OHAPELLE, ber 1748 the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded 
between all the belligerents, on the basis of a restitution 
of all conquests made during the war, and a mutual release of prison- 
ers without ransom. The treaty left unsettled the conflicting claims 

1. Cullodev^ or Cullodcn Moor, is a heath in Scotland, four miles east of Inverness, and one 
hundred and fifteen miles north-west from Edinburgh. The battle of Culloden, fought April 
27th, 1746, terminated the attempts of the Stuart family to recover the throne of England. 
(Map No. XVI.) 

2. The island of Cape Breton^ called by the French Isle Royalc, is on the south-eastern 
border of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Louisburff, once called the " Gibraltar of America," was 
a strongly-fortified town, having one of the best harbors in the world. After its capture by 
general Wolfe in 1758, (see p. 430,) its walls were demolished, and the materials of its buildings 
were carried away for the construction of Halifax, and other towns on the coast. Only a few 
fishermen's huts are now found within the environs of the city, and so complete is tlie ruin 
that it is with difficulty the outlines of the fortifieationa, and of the principal buildings, can b<? 
traced. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 423 

of the English and Spaniards to the trade of the American seas ; 
but France recognized the Hanoverian succession to the English 
throne, and henceforth abandoned the cause of the Pretender. Neither 
France nor England obtained any recompense for the enormous ex- 
penditure of blood and treasure which the war occasioned ; but in 
one aspect the result was favorable to all parties, as, by preserving 
the unity of the Austrian dominion, it maintained the due balance 
of power in continental Europe. 

IV. The Seven Years' War :— 1756-63.^—1. The treaty of 
Aix-la-Chapelle proved to be little better than a sus- ^ eight 
pension of arms. A period of eight years of nominal years of 
peace that followed did not produce, in the different ri^ACE. 
States of Europe, the desired feeling of united firmness and security; 
but all seemed unsettled, and in dread of new commotions. Two 
causes, of a nature entirely distinct, united to involve all ^^ causes 
Christendom in a general war. The first was the long of another 
standing colonial rivalry between France and England ; ^^^^* 
and the second, the ambition of the Great Frederick of Prussia, and 
the jealousy with which the coui-t of Austria regarded the increase 
of the Prussian monarchy. 

2. Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, difficulties 
arose between France and England respecting their colonial possess- 
ions in India. Several years previous to the breaking out of the 
European war, the forces of the English and French East India 
companies, having taken part, as auxiliaries, in the wars between the 
native princes of the country, had been engaged in a course of hos- 
tilities at a time when no war existed between the two nations. 

3. More serious causes of quarrel arose in North America. The 
French possessed Canada and Louisiana, one commanding the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence, the other that of the Mississippi ; while the in- 
tervening territory was occupied by the English colonists. The 
limits of the American colonial possessions of the two nations had 
been left undefined at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and hence dis- 
putes arose among the colonists, who did not always arrange their 
controversies by peaceful discussion. The French made settlements 
at the head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, claiming the ter- 

a That part of the war waged in America between France and England is better known in 
American history as the " French and Indian war." Although hostilities began, in the colonies, 
in 1754, no formal declaration of war was made by either France or England until the breaking 
out of the general European war in 1756. 



424 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

ritory as a part of New Brunswick ; while, by extending a frontier 

line of posts along the Ohio river, they aimed at confining the 

British colonies to the Atlantic coast, and cutting 

IIL BEGIN- - „- - -, . -r . ^^ , 1 

NiNG OF them on from the rest or the contment. in 1/54 the 
HOSTILITIES English Colonial authorities began hostilities on the 
Ohio, without waiting for the formality of a declaration 
of war : in the following year the French forts at the head of the 
Bay of Fundy were reduced by colonel Monckton ; but the English 
general, Braddock, who was sent against Fort Du Quesne, on the 
Ohio, was defeated with a heavy loss, and his army was saved from 
total destruction only by the courage and conduct of major Wash- 
ington, who commanded the provincial troops. 

4. These colonial dijficulties were the prominent causes of enmity 
between France and England ; but such were now the bonds of in- 
terest and alliance that united the difi'erent European States, that 
the quarrel betwixt any two led almost inevitably to a general war. 
A cause of war entirely distinct from the foregoing was found in the 
relations existing between Prussia and Austria. Maria Theresa was 
still dissatisfied with the loss of Silesia, and Frederick, too clear- 
sighted not to see that a third struggle with her was inevitable, 
abandoned the lukewarm aid of France, and formed an alliance with 
England, (Jan. 1756,) an event which altogether changed the exist- 
ing relations between the different States of Europe. Prussia was 

j.^ thus separated from her old ally France, and England 

EUROPEAN from Austria, while France and Austria, nations that 
ALLIANCE, j^^^ heen enemies for three hundred years, found them- 
selves placed in so close political proximity that an alliance between 
them became indispensable to the safety of each. Augustus III., 
king of Poland and also elector of Saxony, allied himself with Aus- 
tria for the purpose of ruining Prussia ; the empress Elizabeth of 
Russia, entertaining a personal hatred of Frederick, who had made 
her the object of his political satires, joined the coalition against 
him, while the latter could regard Sweden in no other light than 
that of an enemy in the event of a general war. 

5. Thus Austria, Russia, France, Sweden, and Poland, had all 
united against one of the smaller kingdoms, which was deprived of 
all foreign resources, with the exception of England ; and the latter, 
in a continental war, could give her ally but little effective aid. 
Austria looked with confidence upon the recovery of Silesia ; the 
partition of Prussia was already planned, and the days of the Prus- 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 425 

sian monarchy appeared to be already numbered ; but in this most 
unequal contest the superiority of Frederick as a general, and the 
discipline of his troops, enabled Prussia to come out of the war with 
increased power and glory. 

•6. Frederick, without waiting for the storm that was about to 
burst upon him, marched forth to meet it, to the surprise 

^ . V. FIRST 

of his enemies, who were scarcely aware that he was campaign of 

armino^. In the month of Ausfust, 1756, he entered Frederick, 

1756 
Saxony at the head of seventy thousand men, blockaded 

the Saxon army, and cut oiF its supplies, defeated an army of Aus- 
trians that advanced to the relief of their allies, and finally com- 
pelled the Saxon forces, now reduced to fourteen thousand men, to 
surrender themselves prisoners, (Oct. 1756,) many of whom he forced 
to enter the Prussian service. Thus the result of the first campaign 
of Frederick was the conquest of all Saxony. 

7. It was not till the month of May and June 1756, that England 
and France issued their declarations of war against each other, al- 
though hostilities had for some time previously been carried on be- 
tween their colonies. France commenced the war by an expedition 
against the island of Minorca, then in possession of the English ; 
and that important fortress surrendered, although admiral Byng had 
been sent out with a squadron for the relief of the place. lu 
America the English had planned, early in the season, the reduction 
of Crown Point, Niagara, and Fort Du Quesne, but not a single ob- 
ject of the campaign was either accomplished or attempted. 

8. At the beginning of the campaign of 1757 it was estimated 
that the armies of the enemies of Frederick, on foot, and 
preparing to march against him, exceeded seven hundred 
thousand men, while the force which he and his English allies could 
bring into the field amounted to but little more than one third of 
that number. Frederick, having succeeded in deceiving the Aus- 
trians as to his real intentions, began the campaign by invading Bo- 
hemia, where, at the head of sixty-eight thousand men, he fought and 
won the celebrated and sanguinary battle of Prague, (May 6,) 
against an army of seventy-five thousand Austrians. Dearly, how- 
ever, was the victory purchased, as twelve thousand five hundred 
Prussians lay dead or wounded on the field of battle. Seeking to 
follow up his advantage, in the following month Frederick experi- 
enced a severe check, being defeated by the greatly superior force 



426 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

of marshal Daun at Kolin,^ in consequence of wliich the Prussians 
were forced to raise the siege of Prague, and evacuate Bohemia. 
The Austrians and their allies, after this unexpected victory, resumed 
operations with increased activity : a Russian army of one hundred 
and twenty thousand men invaded Prussia on the east ; seventeen 
thousand Swedes entered Pomerania ; a,nd two powerful French armies 
crossed the Rhine to attack the English and Hanoverian allies of 
Prussia commanded by the duke of Cumberland. The latter, being 
defeated, was compelled to sign a disgraceful convention by which 
his army of thirty-eight thousand men was reduced to a state of in- 
activity. 

9. The loss of his English allies at this juncture was a most griev- 
ous blow to the king of Prussia. While he held the Austrians at 
bay in Lusatia, Saxony, whence the Prussians drew their supplies, 
was opened to the French ; the Russians were advancing from the 
east, and already the Swedes were ne^i' the gates of Berlin,^ when 
the sudden recall of the Russian army, owing to the serious illness 
of the Russian empress, illumined the troubled path of Frederick 
with a glimmering of hope, which promised to lead him on to better 
fortune. After having in vain tried to give battle to the Austrians, 
he suddenly broke up his camp, and by rapid marches advanced into 
Saxony, to drive the French out of that country. 

10. Early in November, Frederick, at the head of only twenty 
thousand men, came up with the enemy, whose united forces amount- 
ed to seventy thousand. After some manoeuvring he threw his little 
army into the low village of Rossback,^ the heights around which, 
covered with batteries, served at once to defend his position, and 
conceal his movements. Here the French and their allies, antici- 
pating a certain victory, determined to surround him, and thus, by 
making him prisoner, at once put an end to the war. To accomplish 
this object they advanced by forced marches, with sound of trumpet ; 
anxious to see if Frederick would have the courage to make a stand 



1. Kolin is a small town of Bohemia, thirty-seven miles a little south of east from Prague, 
The battle of Kolin, fought June 18th, 1757, was the first which Frederick lost in the Seven 
Years' War. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Berlin^ the capital of the Prussian States, and the ordinary residence of the monarch, is 
on the river Spree, a branch of the Elbe, in the province of Brandenburg, one hundred and 
sixty miles south-east from Hamburg. Berhn is one of the finest cities in Europe, and is called 
the Athens of the north of Germany. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Rosshack is near the western bank of the river Saale, in Prussian Saxony, about twenty 
miles south-west from Leipsic, and consequently near the battle-fields of Leipsic, Jena, and 
Lutzen. Tlie banks of the Saale are fully immortalized by carnage. {Map No. XVII.) 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 427 

against them. The morning of the 5th of November Frederick 
spent in reconnoitering the enemy, and learned their plans for envel- 
oping him ; but he kept his forces perfectly quiet until the afternoon, 
without allowing a single gun to be fired, when, giving his orders, 
and suddenly concentrating the greater part of his troops to one 
point, he hurled them, column after column, in one irresistible tor- 
rent upon the foe. Never before had the French encountered such 
rapidity of action : they were completely overwhelmed and routed 
before they could even form into line ; and in less than half an hour 
the action was decided. " It was the most inconceivable and com- 
plete route and discomfiture," says Voltaire, " of which history makes 
any mention. The defeats of Agincourt, Cressy, and Poitiers, were 
not so humiliating." 

11. The French fled precipitately from the field of battle, and 
never stopped until they had reached the middle States of Germany, 
while many only paused when they had placed the Rhine between 
themselves and the victors. Seven thousand prisoners, and three 
hundred and twenty officers of every rank, including eleven generals, 
fell into the hands of the king, while the loss of the Prussians 
amounted to only five hundred in killed and wounded. Frederick 
caused the wounded among the prisoners to be treated with the 
greatest humanitj^ and attention. The officers of distinction, who 
were taken prisoners, he invited to sup with him. He told them he 
regretted he could not ofi"er them a more splendid entertainment, 
" but gentlemen," said he, " I did not expect you so soon, nor in so 
large numbers." 

12. The victory of Rossback had recovered Saxony, and, what 
was equally important, it gave an opportunity to the English and 
Hanoverian troops to resume their arms, which they did on the 
ground of the alleged infraction of the convention by the French 
general. Still the affairs of Prussia were gloomy in the extreme, 
for during the absence of Frederick from Silesia, that province had 
been overrun b}^ the Austrians, and the Prussians had been defeated 
in several battles. Frederick returned thither in December with 
thirty thousand men, and on the 5th of that month was met, on the 
vast plain of Lissa,^ by the Austrian force of ninety tliousand men, 

1. The Lissa here mentioned is a small town of Silesia, fourteen miles west of Breslau the 
capital of the province, and about one hundred and seventy-five miles south-east from Berlin. 
The battle was fought in the plain between Lissa and Breslau. There is another and larger 
town of Lissa in Poaen, fifty-flve miles north-west from Breslau. {Map No. XVIl.) 



428 MODERN HISTORY. Part II. 

exactly one month after tlie battle of Rossback. Here Frederick 
had recourse to those means by which he had often been enabled to 
double his power by the celerity of his manoeuvres. Having succeed- 
ed in masking the movements of his troops, by taking possession of 
some heights near the field of battle, and causing a false attack to 
be made on the Austrian right, he fell suddenly upon their left and 
routed it before the right could be brought to its support. The con- 
sequent disorder was communicated to the whole Austrian army, and 
in the course of three hours Frederick gained a most complete vic- 
tory. The Austrians lost seven thousand four hundred men in killed 
and wounded, twenty-one thousand prisoners, and one hundred and 
seventeen cannon, while the total Prussian loss was less than five 
thousand men. In this extraordinary battle superior genius tri- 
umphed over superior numbers. When Frederick was told of the 
many insulting things that the Austrians had said of him and his 
little army, '' I pardon them readily," said he, " the follies they may 
have uttered, in consideration of those they have just committed." 

13. The campaign of 1757 was the most eventful of all those 
waged by Frederick ; but although he had been forced to risk his 
fate in eight battles, and more than a hundred partial actions, liis 
numerous enemies failed in their object. The battles of Rossback 
and Lissa inspired the English people with the greatest enthusiasm 
for the Prussian army, and the result was a fresh subsidiary treaty 
entered into with Frederick, by which England agreed to furnish him 
an annual subsidy of six hundred and seventy thousand pounds, and 
to send an army into Germany. Mr. Pitt, recently appointed prime 
minister, entered fully into the views of supporting Frederick, de- 
claring that " the American colonies of the French were to be con- 
quered through Germany." 

14. The campaign of 1758 was opened by Ferdinand, duke of 

Brunswick, who, by the influence of the king of Prussia, 
had been appointed commander of the English and 
Hanoverian troops in Germany. At the head of thirty thousand 
men he drove a French army of eighty thousand beyond the Rhine, 
and in a brief campaign of three months, from January to April, 
took eleven thousand prisoners. Frederick commenced the campaign 
in March, by reducing the last remaining fortress in Silesia : then 
he penetrated to Olmutz,^ in Moravia, but failed in the siege of thai 

1. Olmutz, the former capital of Moravia, and one of tlie strongest fortresses of tlie Austrian 
empire, is on the small river March or Morava, one hundred and five miles north-east from 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 429 

place. Here the Austrians completely surrounded him in the very 
heart of their country, but he effected a retreat as honorable as a 
victory, and suddenly directed his march against the Russians, who 
were committing the most shocking ravages in the province of Bran- 
denburg, sparing neither age nor sex. 

15. At the head of thirty thousand men Frederick met the enemy, 
numbering fifty thousand, on the 24th of August, near the small 
village of Zorndorf,^ where one of the most sanguinary battles of the 
Seven Years' War was fought, continuing from nine o'clock in the 
morning until ten at night. On the evening of this sanguinary day 
nineteen thousand Russians and eleven thousand Prussians lay dead and 
wounded on the field of battle ; but the victory was claimed for the latter. 
The Prussian king in person led the last attacks, and so much was 
he exposed to the fire of the Russians that all his aids, and the pages 
who attended him, were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. 
The able Austrian general, count Daun, who had often fought Fred- 
erick, and sometimes with success, had written to the general of the 
Russians, " not to risk a battle with a wily enemy, whose cunning 
and resources he was not yet acquainted with ;" but as the courier 
who carried this dispatch fell into the hands of the Prussians, Fred- 
erick himself answered the letter in the following words : — " You 
had reason to advise the Russian general to be on his guard against 
a crafty and designing enemy, whom you were better acquainted with 
than he was ; for he has given battle, and has been beaten." At a 
later period in this campaign count Daun surprised and routed the 
right wing of Frederick's troops at Hochkirchen,^ in Saxony, when 
nothing but the admirable perfection of the Prussian discipline saved 
the army from utter destruction. But this reverse could not damp 
the spirits of Frederick : he drove the Austrians a second time from 
Silesia ; and then compelled Daun to abandon the sieges of Dresden 
and Leipsic, and retreat into Bohemia. At the end of the campaign 
Frederick found himself in possession of the same countries as in the 
preceding year, while, in addition, northern and central Germany 
had been recovered from the French. 

16. In the meantime the war had been carried on in other quarters 

Vienna. 11 was taken by the Swedes in the thh-ly years' war, was besieged unsuccessfully by 
Frederick the Great in 175?, and Lafayette was contined there in 1794. (Map No. XVII.) 

1. Zorndorf is a small village of Brandenburg, about twenty miles north-east from Frank- 
fort on the Oder, and abcut the same distance south-east from Custrim. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Uvchkirchen is a small village in the present kingdom of Saxony, (formerly in Lusatia,} 
thirty-seven miles east from Dresden. It is a short distance south-cast from Bautzen, which 
was the chief town of lfj)per Lusalia. {JMnp No. XVII.) 



430 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

between the Frencli and the English. In India the French were 
generally successfal, as they not only j^reserved their possessions, but 
wrested several fortresses from their rivals, but they were deprived 
of all their settlements on the coast of Africa, while in North 
America they abandoned Fort du Quesne to the English, and were 
obliged to surrender the important fortress of Louisburg, after a vig- 
orous siege conducted by generals Amherst and Wolfe. 

17. The campaign of 1759 commenced under favorable auspices 

for the Prussians, as they succeeded early in the season 

vni. 1759. . 1 ^ . ^u -n • • • t> i j j 

m destroymg the liussian magazmes m roland, and 

broke up the Austrian armies in Bohemia ; but in August Frederick 

himself suffered a greater loss, in the battle of Kunersdorf,^ than 

any he had yet experienced. At the head of only forty-eight thou.- 

sand men he attacked the combined Russian and Austrian force of 

ninety-six thousand, defended by strong intrenchments, but he was 

defeated with the loss of more than eighteen thousand men in killed 

and wounded. The Russian and Austrian loss was nearly sixteen 

thousand ; in allusion to which, the Russian general, writing to the 

empress an account of the battle, said : " Your majesty must not be 

surprised at the greatness of our loss. It is the custom of the king 

of Prussia to sell his defeats very dear." At a later period of the 

campaign Frederick rashly exposed fourteen thousand of his troops 

in the defiles of Bohemia, where the}^ were surrounded by the Aus- 

tria.ns, and, after a valiant resistance, compelled to surrender, when 

only three thousand of the number remained unwounded. Yet, after 

all the reverses which the Prussians sustained, the only permanent 

acquisition made by the Austrians was Dresden, for Frederick's vigor 

and rapidity of movement rendered even their victories fruitless. 

18. The campaign of Ferdinand of Brunswick against the French, 
during this year, was more successfal tlian that of the king of Prussia. 
On the 1st of August he attacked the French army of seventy thou- 
sand men near Minden,'* and obtained a complete victory, which 
alone prevented the French from gaining possession of the king of 
England's Hanoverian dominions. On the ocean and in the colonies 
the results of the year 1759 were highly favorable to the English. 
The French fleets were destroyed ; the English gained a decided 

i. Kuncrsdorfis a small vilhige of the province of Brandenburg, a short distance south of 
Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and on the eastern bank of the river, fifly-five miles south-east from 
Berlin. The battle fought near this town is sometimes called the battle of Frankfort. 

2. JMindcn is a Prussian town in Westphalia, on the west bank of (he Weser, near the Han 
overiau frontier, thirty-five miles south-west from Hanover. (^Map No. XVH.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 431 

preponderance in India ; while the conquest of Canada was achieved 
bj the gallant Wolfe, who fell in the moment of victory before the 
walls of Quebec. 

19. After a winter spent in futile attempts at negotiation, the 
most vigorous preparations were made by all parties for 

the campaign of 1 760. It opened with a continuation 
of misfortunes to Prussia, — with the loss of nearly nine thousand men 
surrounded and taken prisoners by the Austrians, — with an unsuc- 
cessful attempt on Dresden by Frederick himself, and the surrender 
of an important fortress in Silesia. For the space of a year Fred- 
erick had met with almost continual reverses, but, still undaunted 
and undismayed, his transcendent talents never shone to greater ad- 
vantage than when brought into action by the rigors of fortune. At 
the very moment when he was surrounded with overwhelming forces 
of Russians and Austrians, to the number of one hundred and seventy- 
five thousand men, and his ruin seemed inevitable, his genius saved 
him, and converted what appeared the certainty of defeat into a series 
of brilliant victories. While his enemies were preparing to attack 
him in his camp, he suddenly fell upon one of their divisions at 
Liegnitz^ and almost annihilated it before the others were aware that 
he had changed his position. (Aug. 16th.) In November he at- 
tacked the intrenched camp of marshal Daun at Torgou,'^ having 
previously declared to his generals his determination to finish the 
war by a decided victory, or perish, with his whole army, in the at- 
tempt. The battle was perhaps the bloodiest fought during the whole 
war, but the impetuosity of the Prussians was irresistible, and the result 
recovered to Frederick all Saxony, except Dresden, and compelled the 
Austrians, Russians, and Swedes, to evacuate the Prussian dominions. 

20. The campaign of Ferdinand of Brunswick against the French 
in northern and western Gi-ermany was marked by a great number 
of skirmishes which fatigued both parties, and in which towns and 
villages were taken and retaken ; but when it is considered that the 
hostile armies numbered nearly two hundred thousand men, we are 
surprised to find that no memorable events occurred. 

21. During the year 1760 France and Spain formed an intimate 
alliance, known by the name of the Family Compact^ by which the 
enemy of either was to be considered the enemy of both, and neither was 

1. TAegnitz is a town of Silesia, on the Katsbach, forty-six noiiles a little north of west from 
Breslau. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Torgou is a town of Prussian Saxony, on the west bank of the Elbe, sixty-six miles soutb* 
west from Berlin. {Map No. XVIi.) 



432 MODERN HISTORY. .[Part H 

to make peace without consent of the other. This was an unfortunate 
act for Spain, whose colonies of Cuba^ and Manilla,'^ with her ships 
of war and commerce, soon fell into the hands of England. The 
English were also successful against the French ; and the latter, be- 
fore the close of the war, were divested of all their possessions of 
importance in the East Indies, while Belleisle,^ on the very coast of 
France, was captured, and in the W^st Indies, Martinico, Guada- 
loupe,* and other islands, were added to the list of British conquests. 

22. The campaign of 1761 was carried on languidly by all parties. 
The king of Prussia, exhausted even by his victories, was forced to 

act on the defensive, while the English government, after 
the accession of Greorge III. to the throne, (Oct. 1760,) 
had shown, under the counsels of Lord Bute, an ardent desire for 
peace, even if it were to be obtained by the sacrifice of the Prussian 
monarch. An event which happened early in 1 762 greatly improved 
the aspect of Prussian affairs, and more than compensated Frederick 
for the growing coldness of England towards him. This was the 
death of Frederick's implacable enemy, Elizabeth, empress of Kussia, 
and the accession of her nephew, the unfortunate Peter the Third, 
who was a warm admirer and most sedulous imitator of the king of 
Prussia. The Russian armies withdrew from their former Austrian 
allies, and ranged themselves under the Prussian standards : Sweden 
concluded a peace with Prussia ; and even Austria consented to a 
cessation of hostilities in Silesia and Saxony. 

23. In November 1763 the preliminary articles of peace were 

signed at Paris between England, France, and Spain, 
^F VuB while Prussia and Austria, deserted by their allies, were 

left to continue the war ; but they also soon agreed to 
suspend hostilities, and in the month of February 1763 peace was 
concluded between all the belligerents. France ceded to England, 
Canada and Cape Breton, while Spain purchased the restoration of 
the conquests which had been made from her, by the cession of 
Florida to England, by giving the latter permission to cut logwood 

1. Cuba, the largest of the West India islands, and the mistress of the Gulf of Mexico, still 
belongs to Spain. 

2. Manilla, a fortified seaport city of Luzon, one of the Philippine islands, is the capital of 
the Spanish settlements in the East. 

3. Bellisle is an island west of France, on the coast of Brittany, thirty miles south-west from 
Vannes. {Map No. XIII.) 

4. Martinique and Guadaloupe belong to the W^indward group of the West Indies. Both 
have frequently changed hands between the French and the English, but both were restored 
lo France in 1815. Martinique was the birth-place of (lie empress Josephine. 



FREDEalCK. 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 433 

in the bay of Honduras,' and by a renunciation of all claim to tlie 
Newfoundlend fisheries. But important as these results were to 
England, they were so much less advantageous than her position 
might have commanded, that it was said of her, " she made war like 
a lion, and peace like a lamb." Of France it was said by Voltaire, 
that " by her alliance with Austria she had lost in six years more 
men and money than all the wars she had ever sustained against that 
power had cost her." By the terms of the treaty between Prussia 
and Austria, prisoners were exchanged, and a restitution of all con- 
quests was made; but Frederick still held the much-contested Silesia, 
a small territory, which had cost the contending parties more than a 
million of men. The 2'lory of the war remained chiefly 

11 1 ni ' 11 ^^^- MILITARY 

with Frederick, who, at the head of his veteran phalanx, character 
moving among the masses of Austria, France, and Bussia, 
and confronting all. still preserved, through an unex- 
ampled series of victories and reverses, the character of Great. No 
general ever surpassed him in regularity and rapidity of manoeuvres, 
in well ordered marches, and in the facility of concentrating masses 
on the weak side of an enemy. " Bonaparte effected wonders with 
ample means ; but when reduced to play the forlorn game of Fred- 
erick against united Europe, the great French captain fell, — the 
Prussian lived and died a king." 

V. State of Europe. The AiMEracAN Revolution. — 1. The 
peace of 1763 gave general tranquillity to Europe, which ^ general 
continued until the breaking out of the war between peace in 
England and her American colonies, called the " War of ^urofk. 
the American Bevolution." The result of the " Seven Years' War" 
was, that Prussia and Austria became the principal continental 
powers ; France, by her subserviency to Austria, her ancient enemy, 
lost the political ascendency which she had previously sustained; 
and Britain, although abandoning her influence in the European 
system, and maintaining intimate relations with Portugal and Hol- 
land only, had obtained complete maritime supremacy. Frederick 
of Prussia exerted himself successfully to repair the desolation made 
in his dominions by the ravages of war ; he gave corn, for planting, 
to the destitute, procured laborers from other countries, remitted 
the taxes for a season, and during the four and twenty years of his 

1. Honduras is a settlement adjoining the bay of the same name, on the eastern coast of 
Yucatan. In 1798 it was transferred to England, in accordance with a previous treaty. 

28 



434 MODERN HISTORY. [Part I L 

reign after the peace, he appropriated for the encouragement of agri- 
culture, commerce, and manufactures, no less than twenty-four millions 
of dollars ; and this sum he had saved, by his simple and frugal life, 
from the amount set apart for the maintenance of his court. 

2. In the meantime France, during the last years of the reign of 

the dissolute Louis XV., was declining in power, and 
sinking into disgrace. While the finances were in a state 
of utter confusion, and universal misery pervaded the land, there 
was the same splendor in the court, and the same profusion in ex- 
penditure, that marked the conclusion of the reign of Louis XIV. 
Both monarchs were doomed to see their children perish by an un- 
accountable decay; and on the death of Louis XV. in 1774, it was 
his youthful grandson, already married to an Austrian princess, who 
was elevated to the throne. As evidence of the heartlessness that 
often surrounds a court, it is related that no sooner had Louis XV. 
breathed his last, than the array of sedulous courtiers deserted the 
apartments of the deceased monarch, and rushed forth in a tumult- 
uous crowd to do homage to the rising power of Louis XVI. The 
first act of this pious prince and of his queen was to fall on their 
knees and exclaim, " Our God ! guide and protect us : we are too 
young to reign." 

3. "While the power and greatness of France were declining, 

Russia was gradually acquiring a preponderating influ- 
ence in Eastern Europe. In 1768 a war broke out be- 
tween her and Turkey, which resulted in a series of defeats and 
losses to the latter. During this war Russia had taken possession 
of Moldavia and Wallachia,^ which she was extremely desirous of 
retaining ; but Austria opposed it, lest Russia should become too 
powerful ; and as the latter was at the same time engaged in a con- 
test with a confederacy of Polish patriots under the pretence of at- 
tempting to restore tranquillity to Poland, it was thought best that 
she should retain a portion of the Polish territory instead of the 
conquered Turkish provinces. But even this would destroy the bal- 
ance between the three 2:reat eastern powers of Ohristen- 

TV. DISMEM- ° ... 

BERME.NT OF dom j aud, to restore the equilibrium, Prussia and Aus- 
poLAXD. ^Yia must have a share also ; and thus was accomj)lished 

1, Moldavia and Wallachia are two contiguous provinces of Turkey, embracing the ancient 
Dacia. {Map No. IX.) They are in reality under tlie protection of Russia. Wallachia lies 
along the northern bank of the Danube, and Moldavia iimnediately west of the river Pruth. 
(J»/a;>No. XVir 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 435 

the iniquitous measure of a dismemberment of Poland, and the di- 
vision of a large portion of her territory between Russia, Prussia, 
and Austria. (1773.) 

4. At the time of the conclusion of the peace of 1 763 a strong feel- 
ing of animosity existed between the two great parties in 

V • STATE OF 

England, — the whigs and the tories, — the latter of whom parties in 
had been taken into favor and rewarded with the chief England. 
offices of government soon after the accession of George the Third. 
A long and expensive war had increased the national debt, and ren- 
dered additional taxes necessary, while the bulk of the nation very 
naturally thinking that conquests and riches ought to go hand in 
hand, were induced to believe that administration arbitrary and op- 
pressive which loaded them with new taxes immediately after the 
great successes which had attended the British arms. The indiscre- 
tion of the ministry, in levying the taxes upon certain important ar- 
ticles of domestic manufacture, threw the kingdom into an almost 
universal ferment, and compelled the resignation of the earl of Bute, 
who was at the head of the tory administration. 

5. The earl of Bute was succeeded by Mr. Grenville, and as he also 
was a tory, and was considered but the passive instrument of the late 
minister, he inherited all the unpopularity of his predecessor. One 
of his first acts was the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Wilkes, a 
member of parliament, who, in a paper called the North Briton, had 
asserted that the king's speech at the opening of parliament, which 
he affected to consider as the minister's, contained a falsehood. On 
a hearing before the judges of the common pleas, it was decided 
that the commitment of Mr. Wilkes was illegal, and that his privi- 
leges, as member of parliament, had been infringed by the ministry. 
Mr. Wilkes was subsequently outlawed by the Commons, on his fail- 
ing to appear to answer the charges against him ; but this extreme 
severity only increased the agitation, and imbittered the feelings of 
the opposing parties. At a later period, on a legal trial, the out- 
lawry of Mr. Wilkes was reversed, and he was repeatedly chosen a 
member of the Commons, although the house as often rejected him. 

6. The augmentation of the revenue being at this time the chief 
object of the administration, in 1764 Mr. Grrenville in- 
troduced into parliament a project for taxing the Ameri- ^\,^^^^^^^^^ 
can colonies; and early in 1675 the " Stamp Act" was 

passed — an act ordering that all legal writings, together with pam- 
phlets, newspapers, &c., in the colonies, should be executed on 



436 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

stamped paper, for which a duty should be paid to the crown. The 
colonies resisted every project for taxing them, on the ground that 
they were not represented in the British parliament, and that 
taxation and representation were inseparable ; and a large party in 
England, consisting mostly of whigs, united with them in maintain- 
ing this doctrine. The stamp act was soon repealed, but the minis- 
try still avowed the right of the mother country to tax her colonial 
possessions, and this doctrine, still persisted in, laid the foundation 
for that contest which at length terminated in the independence of 
the American colonies. 

7. Misfortunes seemed to attend almost every scheme undertaken 
by England for coercing the Americans into obedience. A bill was 
passed for depriving the people of New England of the benefits of 
the Newfoundland fisheries ; and it was thought that this act would 
throw into the hands of British merchants the profits which were 
formerly divided with the colonies ; but the Americans refused to 
supply the British fishermen with provisions, and many of the ships 
were obliged to abandon, for a time, the business on which they 
came, and return in quest of supplies. Added to this, a most vio- 
lent and unprecedented storm swept over the fishing banks ; the sea 
arose thirty feet above its ordinary level, and ujDwards of seven hun- 
dred English fishing boats were lost, with all the people in them, 
and many ships foundered with their whole crews. When, at the 
commencement of the war, an immense quantity of provisions was 
prepared in England for the use of the British army in America, the 
transports remained for a long time wind-bound ; then contrary winds 
detained them so long near the English coasts that nearly twenty 
thousand head of live stock perished ; a storm afterwards drove 
many of the ships to the AVest Indies, and others were captured by 
American privateers, so that only a few reached the harbor of Boston, 
with their cargoes greatly damaged. The universal distress produced 
throughout the British nation by the refusal of the Americans to 
purchase British goods, completed the catalogue of evils which fol- 
lowed in the train of ministerial measures, and, by exciting the most 
violent altercations between opposing parties, seemed to threaten 
England herself with the horrors of civil war. 

8. Passing by the arguments that were used for and against tax- 
ation — the acts exhibiting the rash confidence and perseverance of 
the ministers and the crown — the determined opposition of th^ colo- 
nies — the changes in the English ministry, and the dissensions be- 



Chap. V.J EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 437 

tween opposing parties in England — we come to the decisive open- 
ing of the war with the British American colonies by the 
skirmish at Lexington, on the 19th of April, 1775. A of the war 
revolutionary war of seven years' duration followed, ^^th the 
on the American soil, — a war of the weak against the *^°^®^^^^- 
strong — of the few in numbers against the many — but a war successful, 
in its results, to the cause of freedom. Fortunately for the colonies 
the war was not confined to them alone ; and as the history of the 
American portion of it is doubtless already familiar to most of our 
readers, we proceed to consider the new relations, between England 
and the other powers of Europe, arising out of the war of the Ameri- 
can Revolution. 

9. The continental powers, jealous of the maritime and commercial 
prosperity of England, and ardently desiring her humili- 
ation in the contest which she had unwisely provoked pean kela 
with her colonies, rejoiced at every misfortune that befel "^ns of 
her. The French and Spanish courts, from the first, 

gave the Americans the aid of their sympathy, and opened their 
ports freely to American cruisers, who found there ready purchasers 
for their prizes ; and although, when England complained of the aid 
thus given to her enemies, it was publicly disavowed, yet it was evi- 
dent that both France and Spain secretly favored the cause of the 
Americans. 

10. The capture of the entire British army of general Burgoyne 
at Saratoga, in October 1777, induced France to throw 

aside the mask with which she had hitherto endeavored ^^' '^^"•'^^^^ 

BETWEEN 

to conceal her intentions ; and in the month of March france and 

1778, she srave a formal notification to the British gov- "^^^ ^^J^^i- 
, , , . ° can states. 

ernment that she had concluded a treaty of alliance, 

friendship, and commerce, with the American States. France and 

England now made the most vigorous preparations for the anticipated 

contest between them ; the English marine force was increased, but 

the French navy now equalled, if it did not exceed, that of England, 

nor was France disposed to keep it idle in her ports. 

11. Although war had not yet been declared between the two na- 
tions, in the month of April, 1778, a French fleet, com- 
manded by Count D'Estaing, sailed from Toulon for between 
America ; and soon after a much larger naval force was france and 
assembled at Brest, with the avowed object of invading 
England. In June, the English admiral Keppel fell in with and at- 



438 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

tacked three Frencli frigates on the western coast of France, two of 
which he captured. The French government then ordered reprisals 
against the ships of Great Britain, and the English went through the 
same formalities, so that both nations were now in a state of actual war. 

12. During the autumn and winter of 1778 the West Indies were 
the principal theatre of the naval operations of France and England. 
In September, the governor of the French island of Martinique at- 
tacked, and easily reduced, the English island of Dominica,^ where 
he obtained a large quantity of military stores ; but in the December 
following the French island of St. Lucia^ was compelled to submit 
to the English admiral Barrington, after an ineflfectual attempt to 
relieve it by the fleet of D'Estaing. 

13. While these naval events were occurring on the American 
coasts, the French and English settlements in the East Indies had 
also become involved in hostilities. Soon after the acknowledgment, 
of American independence by the court of France, the British East 
India company, convinced that a quarrel would now ensue between 
the two kingdoms, despatched orders to its officers at Madras to 
attack the neighboring post of Pondicherry, the capital of the French 
East India possessions. That place was accordingly besieged in 
August, by a force of ten thousand men, natives and Englishmen, 
and after a vigorous resistance was compelled to surrender in Octo- 
ber following. Other losses in that quarter of the globe followed, 
and during one campaign the French power in India was nearly anni- 
hilated, 

14. In the year 1779 another power was added to the enemies of 
England. Spain, under the pretext that her mediation, — (which she 

had proposed merely as the forerunner of a rupture) — 
BETWEEN liad been slighted by England, declared war, and with 
SPAIN AND the cooperation of a French fleet laid siege to Gib- 
raltar, both by sea and land, in the hope of recovering 
that important fortress. Early in this year a French fleet attacked 
and captured the British forts and settlements on the rivers Senegal 
and Gambia, on the western coast of Africa ; and later in the season 
the French conquered the English islands of St. Vincents^ and 

1. Dominica is one of the Windward islands, in the West Indies, between Martinique and 
She Guadaloupe. It was restored to England at the peace of 1783. 

2. St. Lucia is also one of the Windward group. At the peace of Paris it was definitively 
assigned to England. 

3. St. Vincents is the central island of the Windward group. By the peace of 1783 it reverted 
to Great Britain. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 439 

Grenada^ in the West Indies ; but the count D'Estaing, acting in 
concert with an American force, was repulsed in the siege of Savannah. 

15. Early in January 1780, the British admiral Rodney being 
despatched with a powerful fleet to the relief of Gibraltar, fell in 
with and captured a Spanish squadron of seven ships of war and a 
number of transports ; and a few days later he engaged a larger 
squadron off Cape St. Vincent, and captured six of the heaviest ves- 
sels and dispersed the remainder. These victories enabled him to 
afford complete relief to the garrisons of Gibraltar and Minorca, 
after which he proceeded to America, and thrice encountered the 
French fleet, but without obtaining any decisive success. In August 
the English suffered a very heavy loss in the capture of the outward 
bound East and West India fleets of merchant vessels, by the Span- 
iards, off the western coast of France. 

1 G. The position which England had taken in claiming the right 
of searching neutral ships for contraband goods, together with her 
occasional seizure of vessels not laden with exceptionable 

. . Xir, ARMED 

cargoes, were the cause of a formidable opposition to her neutrality 
at this time, by most of the European powers, who united against 

- . , nil,* 1 XT T 11 ENGLAND. 

m forming what was called the "Armed JNeutrality" 
for the protection of the commerce of neutral nations. In these pro- 
ceedings, Catherine, Empress of Russia, took the lead, asserting, in her 
manifesto to the courts of London, Versailles, and Madrid, that she 
had adopted the following principles, which she would defend and 
maintain with all her naval power: — 1st, that neutral ships should 
enjoy a free navigation from one port to another, even upon the 
coasts of belligerent powers, except to ports actually blockaded : 2d, 
that all effects conveyed by such ships, excepting only warlike stores, 
should be free : 3d, that whenever any vessel should have shown, by 
its papers, that it was not the carrier of any contraband article, it 
should not be liable to seizure or detention ; and 4th — it was de- 
clared that such ports only should be deemed blockaded, before which 
there should be stationed a sufficient force to render the entrance 
perilous. Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Prussia, Portugal, and Gej 
many, readily acceded to the terms of the "armed neutrality;" 
France and Spain expressed their approval of them, while nothing 
but fear of the consequences which must have resulted from the re- 

1. Grenada \a one of the most southerly of the Windward group. About the year 1650 it 
was first colonized by the French, from whom it was taken by the British in 1762. Iij 1779 it 
was retaken by the French, but was restored to Great Britain at the peace of 1783. 



440 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

fusal, induced England to submit to this exposition of tlie laws of 
nations, and tlie rights of neutral powers. 

17. Since the alliance between France and the United States^ 

mutual recriminations had been almost constantly pass- 
xiir. RUPTURE ' i^etween the Endish and the Dutch government, the 

BETWEE^f O C3 O . ^7 

ENGLAND fomicr accusing the latter of supplying the enemies of 
^^^ England with naval and military stores, contrary to 

HOLLAND. ° . -, . -, , 1 1 . • ^ 

treaty stipulations, and the latter complaining that great 
numbers of Dutch vessels, not laden with contraband goods, had been 
seized and carried into the ports of England. A partial collision 
between a Dutch and an English fleet, early in the year 1780, had 
increased the hostile feelings of the two nations ; and in December 
of the same year Great Britain declared, and immediately com- 
menced, war against Holland, induced b}^ the discovery that a com- 
mercial treaty was already in process of negotiation between that 
country and the United States. The Dutch shipping was detained 
in the ports of Great Britain, and instructions were despatched to 
the commanders of the British forces in the West Indies, to pro- 
ceed to immediate hostilities against the Dutch settlements in that 
quarter. 

18. The most important of these was the island of St. Eustatia,' 
a free port, abounding with riches, owing to the vast conflux of trade 
from every other island in those seas. The inhabitants of the island 
were wholly unaware of the danger to which they were exposed, 
when, on the 3d of February, 1781, Admiral Rodney suddenly ap- 
peared, and sent a peremptory order to the governor to surrender 
the island and its dependencies within an hour. Utterly incapable 
of making any defence, the island was surrendered without any stipu- 
lations. The amount of property that thereby fell into the hands 
of the captors was estimated at four millions sterling. The settle- 
ments of the Dutch situated on the north-eastern coast of South 
America soon after shared the same fate as Eustatia. 

19. In the month of May the Spanish governor of Louisiana 
completed the conquest of West Florida from the English, by the 
capture of Pensacola. In the West Indies the fleets of France and 
England had several partial engagements during the month of April, 
May, and June, but without any decisive results. In the latter part 

1. St. Eustatia is one of the group of the Leeward islands, a range extending north-west of 
the Windward isles. This island was taken possession of by the Dutch early in the seventeenth 
century. It has, since then, several times changed hands between them, the French, and the 
English, but was finally given up to Holland in 1814. 



Chap v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 441 

of May a large body of French troops landed on the island of To- 
bago/ which surrendered to them on the 3d of June. In the month 
of August a severe engagement took place on the Dogger Bank/ 
north of Holland, between a British fleet, commanded by Admiral 
Parker, and a Dutch squadron, commanded by Admiral Zoutman. 
Both fleets were rendered nearly unmanageable, and with difiiculty 
regained their respective coasts. 

20. In the meantime the war had been carried on, during a period 
of more than six years, between England and her rebellious Ameri- 
can colonies ; but the latter, guided by the counsels of the immortal 
Washington, had nobly withstood all the efibrts of the most powerful 
nation in the world to reduce them to submission, and had finally 
compelled the surrender, at Yorktown, of the finest army England 
had ever sent to America. After the defeat and surrender of Corn- 
wallis, at Yorktown, in October, 1781, the war with the United States 
was considered, virtually, at an end ; but between England and her Eu- 
ropean enemies hostilities were carried on more vigorously than ever. 
The siege of Gibraltar was ardently prosecuted by the Spaniards ; 
and the soldiers of the garrison, commanded by governor Elliot, were 
greatly incommoded by the want of fuel and provisions. They were 
also exposed to an almost incessant cannonade from the Spanish bat- 
teries, situated on the peninsula which connects the fortress with the 
main land. During three weeks, in the month of May, 1781, nearly 
one hundred thousand shot or shells were thrown into the town. But 
while the eyes of Europe were turned, in suspense, upon this im- 
portant fortress, and all regarded a much longer defence impossible, 
suddenly, on the night of the 27th of November, a chosen body of 
two thousand men from the garrison sallied forth, and, in less than 
an hour, stormed and utterly demolished the enemy's works. The 
damage done on this occasion was estimated at two millions sterling. 

21. In the month of February following, the island of Minorca, 
after a long siege, almost as memorable as that of Gribraltar, sur- 
rendered to the Spanish forces, after having been in the possession 
of England since the year 1708. During the same month the former 
Dutch settlements on the north-eastern coast of South America were 

1. Tobago is a short distance nortii-east of Trinidad, near the northern coast of South 
America. It was ceded to Great Britain by France in 17G3, but in 1781 was retalcen by the 
French, who retained possession of it till 1793, since which it has belonged to England. 

2. The Dogger Bank is a long narrow sand bank in the North Sea or German Ocean, extend- 
ing from Jutland, on the west coast of Denraarlf, nearly to the mouth of the Humber, on the 
eastern coast of England. 



442 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

recaptured by tlie French. St. Eustatia had been recaptured in the 
preceding November. Other islands in the West Indies surrendered 
to the French, and the loss of the Bahamas^ soon followed. For these 
losses, however, the British were fully compensated by an important 
naval victory gained by Admiral Rodney over the fleet of the Count 
de Grrasse, on the 12th of April, in the vicinity of the Carribee 
islands.^ In this obstinate engagement most of the ships of the 
French fleet were captured, that of Count de Grasse among the 
number, and the loss of the French, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 
was estimated at eleven thousand men. The loss of the English, in- 
cluding both killed and wounded, amounted to about eleven hundred. 

22. During the year 1 782 the fortress of Gibraltar, which had so 
long bid defiance to the power of Spain, withstood one of the most 
memorable sieges ever known. The Spaniards had constructed a 
number of immense floating batteries in the bay of Gibraltar ; and 
one thousand two hundred pieces of heavy ordnance had been brought 
to the spot, to be employed in the various modes of assault. Besides 
these floating batteries, there were eighty large boats, mounted with 
heavy guns and mortars, together with a vast multitude of frigates, 
sloops, and schooners, while the combined fleets of France and Spain, 
numbering fifty sail of the line, were to cover and support the attack. 
Eighty thousand barrels of gunpowder were provided for the occasion, 
and more than one hundred thousand men were employed, by land 
and sea, against the fortress. 

23. Early in the morning of the 13th of September the floating 
batteries came forward, and at ten o'clock took their stations about 
a thousand yards distant from the rock of Gibraltar, and began a 
heavy cannonade, which was seconded by all the cannon and mor- 
tars in the Spanish lines and approaches. At the same time the 
garrison opened all their batteries, both with hot and cold shot, and 
during several hours a tremendous cannonade and bombardment was 
kej)t up on both sides, without the least intermission. About two 
o'clock the largest Spanish floating battery was discovered to emit 
smoke, and towards midnight it was plainly seen to be on fire. Other 
batteries began to kindle ; signals of distress were made ; and boats 

1. The Bahamas are an extensive group of islands lying east and south-east from Florida. 
They have been estimated at about six hundred in number, most of them were cliflFs and 
rocks, only fourteen of them being of any considerable size. 

2. What are sometimes called the Carribee Islands comprise the whole of the Windward 
and the southern portion of the Leeward islands, from Auguila on the north to Trinidad on 
the south. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEEN-TH CENTURY. 443 

were sent to take the men from tlie burning vessels, but they were 
interrupted by the English gun boats, which now advanced to the 
attack, and, raking the whole line of batteries with their fire, com- 
pleted the confusion. The batteries were soon abandoned to the 
flames, or to the mercy of the English. 

24. At the awful spectacle of several hundred of their fellow 
soldiers- exposed to almost inevitable destruction, the Spaniards ceased 
firing, when the British seamen, with characteristic humanity, rushed 
forward, and exerted themselves to the utmost to save those who were 
perishing in the flames and the waters. About four hundred Span- 
iards were thus saved, — but all the floating batteries were consumed, 
and the combined French and Spanish forces were left incapable of 
making any farther effectual attack. Soon after, Gribraltar was re- 
lieved with supplies of provisions, military stores, and additional 
troops, by a squadron sent from England, when the farther siege of 
the place was abandoned. 

25. The siege of Gribraltar was the last act of importance during 
the continuance of the war in Europe. In the East 

^ ^ XIV. WAU, IN 

Indies the British settlements had been engaged, during the 
several j^ears, in hostilities with the native inhabitants, 
who were conducted by the ftimous Hyder Ali, and his son Tippoo 
Saib, often assisted by the fleets and land forces of France and Hol- 
land. Hyder Ali, from the rank of a common sepoy, had raised 
himself, by his abilities, to the throne of Mysore,* one of the most 
important of the kingdoms of Hindostan. His territories, of which 
Seringapatam"^ was the capital, bordered on those of the English, which 
lined the eastern coast of the peninsula ; and as he saw the possess- 
ions of the Europeans gradually encroaching upon the domains of 
the native princes, he resolved to unite the latter in a powerful con- 
federacy for the expulsion of the intruders. After detaching one of 
the powerful northern princes from an alliance with the English, and 

1. Mysore^ a town of southern Hindostan, and capital of the State of the same name, is three 
hundred miles north of Cape Comorin, and nine miles south-west from Seringapatam. The 
Stale of Mysore, comprising a territory of about thirty thousand square miles, is almost entirely 
surrounded by the territory of the Rladras presidency ; and although the government is nomi- 
nally in the hands of a native prince, it is subsidiary to the government of Madras. From 
1700 to 1799 Mysore was governed by Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. 

2, Seringapatam is a decayed town and fortress of Hindostan, in the State of Mysore, two 
hundred and fifty miles south of Madras. It was besieged by the English on three different 
occasions: the first two sieges took place in 1791 and 1792, and the third in 1799, on the 4th of 
May of which year it was stormed by the British and their allies, on which occasion Tippoo 
was killed, with the greater part of his garrison, amounting to eight thousand men. On an 
eminence in the suburbs of Seringapatam is the mausoleum of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib. 



KAST 
INDIES. 



444 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

liaving introduced tlie European discipline among Ms numerous troops, 
as early as 1 767 he began the war, which was continued with scarcely 
any intermission, hut with little permanent success on the part of the 
natives, down to the period of the American war, when the French 
united with him, and the war was carried on with increased vigor. 

26. In the year 1 780 Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Saib, at the 
head of an army of one hundred thousand natives, and aided by a 
body of French troops, fell upon the English forces in the presidency 
of Madras, and killed or captured the whole of them, — Madras, the 
capital, alone being saved from falling into their hands. In the 
following year the English were strongly reenforced, and Hyder Ali, 
at the head of two hundred thousand men, was defeated in three 
obstinate battles ; but these successes were interrupted by the loss 
of an English force of three thousand men, which was entirely cut 
to pieces by Tippoo Saib in the year 1 782. 

27. On the death of Hyder Ali, in the same year, Tippoo Saib 
succeeded to the throne, and in the following year, after the restora- 
tion of peace between France and England, he concluded a treaty 
with the English, in which the latter made concessions that greatly 
detracted from the respect hitherto paid to their name in Asia. But 
this native prince never ceased, for a moment, to cherish the hope of 
expelling the British from Hindostau. In 1790 he began the war 
again, but was eventually compelled to purchase peace at the price 
of one half of his dominions. His last war with the English ter- 
minated in 1799, by the storming of Seringapatam, his capital, and 
the death of Tippoo, who fell in the assault. 

28. On the 30th of November 1 782, preliminary articles of peace 

were signed between Great Britain and the United States, 
which were to be definitive as soon as a treaty between 
France and Great Britain should be concluded. When 
the session of parliament opened, on the 5th of December, consid- 
erable altercation took place in respect to the terms of the provis- 
ional treaty, but a large majority was found to be in favor of the 
peace thus obtained. The independence of the United States being 
now recognized by England, the original purpose of France was ac- 
complished ; and all the powers at war being exceedingly desirous of 
XVI GENE- P®^^"> preliminary articles were signed by Great Britain, 
RALTRKATY Fraucc, and Spain, on the 20th of January, 1783. By 
OF 1783. i^i^jg treaty France restored to Great Britain all French 
acquisitions in the West Indies during the war, excepting Tobago, 



XV. TREATY 
OF 1782. 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 445 

while England surrendered to France the important station of St. 
Lucia. On the coast of Africa the settlements in the vicinity of the 
river Senegal were ceded to France, — those on the Gambia to Eng- 
land. In the East Indies France recovered all the places she had 
lost during the war, to which were added others of considerable im- 
portance. Spain "retained Minorca and West Florida, while East 
Florida was ceded to her in return for the Bahamas. It was not till 
September, 1783, that Holland came to a preliminary settlement 
with Great Britain, although a suspension of arms had taken place 
between the two powers in the January preceding. 

29. Thus closed the most important war in which England had 
ever been engaged, — a war which originated in her ungenerous treat- 
ment of the American colonies. The expense of blood and treasure 
which this war cost England was enormous ; nor did her European 
antagonists suffer much less severely. The United States was the 
only country that could claim any beneficial results from the war, 
and these were obtained by a strange union of opposing motives and 
principles on the part of European powers. France and Spain, ar- 
bitrary despots of the Old World, had stood forth as the protectors 
of an infant republic, and had combined, contrary to all the princi- 
ples of their political faith, to establish the rising liberties of America. 
They seemed but as blind instruments in the hands of Providence, 
employed to aid in the dissemina«tion of those republican virtues that 
are destined to overthrow every system of political oppression through- 
out the world. 

VI. The Fe-ench Revolution. — 1. The democratic spirit which 
had called forth the war between England and her American colonies, 
and which the princes of continental Europe had en- ^ 

couraged and fostered, through jealousy of the power of democratic 
England, to the final result of American independence, spirit. 
was destined to exert a much wider influence than the royal allies of 
the infant Bepublic had ever dreamed of. Borne back to France by 
those of her chivalrous sons who, in aiding an oppressed people, had 
imbibed their principles, it entered into the causes which were al- 
ready at work there in breaking up the foundations of the rotten 
frame-work of French society, and contributed greatly to hurry for- 
ward the tremendous crisis of the French Revolution. 

2. At the time of the death of Louis XV., in 1774, the lower 
orders of the French people had been brought to a state of extreme 



446 MODERN HISTORY. [Part H. 

indigence and suffering, by the luxuries of a dissolute and despotic 
court, during a long period of misrule, in which agriculture was sadly 
neglected, and trade, commerce, and manufactures, existed but in an 
infant and undeveloped state. The nobility had been, for a long 
period, losing their power and their wealth, by the gradual elevation 
of the middling classes ; and the clergy had lost nluch of their influ- 
ence by the rise of philosophical investigation, which was not only 
attended by an extraordinary degree of freedom of thought, but was 
strongly tinctured also with infidelity. 

3. Louis XVI., who came to the throne at the age of twenty years, 

was poorly calculated to administer the government at a 

"' critical period, when resolute and energetic measures 

LOUIS XVI. r > fe 

were requisite. He was a pious prmce, and smcerely 
loved the welfare of his subjects ; but the exclusively religious educa- 
tion which he had received had made him little acquainted with the 
world, and he was exceedingly ignorant of all polite learning — even of 
history and the science of government. Ignorance of politics, weak- 
ness, vacillation, and irresolution, were the fatal defects in the king's 
character. 

4. To find a remedy for the disordered state of the French finances, 

and the decline of public credit, was the first difiiculty 

III. FINAN- ^ •11 • 

ciAL DiFFi- which Louis had to encounter ; nor did he surmount it 
cuLTiEs. -until he found himself involved in the vortex of a Revo- 
lution. Minister after minister attempted it, sometimes with partial 
success, but oftener with an increase of evil. Turgot would have 
introduced radical and wise reforms by an equality of taxation, and 
by the suppression of every species of exclusive privilege ; but the 
nobility, the courtiers, and the clergy, who were interested in main- 
taining all kinds of abuses, protested against any sacrifices on their 
part ; and the able minister fell before their combined opposition. 
Turgot was succeeded by Neckar, a native of Geneva, an economical 
financier, who had amassed immense wealth as a banker ; but his 
projects of economy and reform alarmed the privileged orders, and 
their opposition soon compelled him to retire also. 

5. The brilliant, vain, and plausible Calonne, the next minister of 
finance, promulgated the theory that profusion forms the wealth of 
a State ; a paradox that was highly applauded by the courtiers. 
His system was to encourage industry by expenditure, and to stifle 
discontent by prodigality; he liquidated old debts by contracting 
new ones, — paid exorbitant pensions, and gave splendid entertain- 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ■**'' ■ 

™ents; and while the credit of the minister lasted, his resources 
appeared inexhaustible. Calonne continued the system of loans afte. 
the conclusion of the American war, and untd the credit of the gov- 
ernment was utterly exhausted, when it was found tha the annu 1 
deQcit of the revenue, below the expenditure, was nearly thnty mil- 
lions of dollars! General taxation of the nobility and clergy, as 
well as the commons, was now proposed, and in order to ohtam a 
Tanction to the measure, an assembly of the NotaUes,-the chief 
of the privileged orders,-was called; but although *« -«embly 
first assented to a general tax, the national parliament defeated the 

''T Brienne, who succeeded Calonne, becoming involved in a contest 
with the parliament, which was anxious to mamtain the ,^ ^^^ 
immunities of the privileged orders, and being unable to _st.™s-^ 
obtain a loan to meet the exigencies of government, was 
reduced to the necessity of a convocation of the States^General, a 
great National Legislature, composed of =^^P^;=«"*^t'™^/''"7^^?"; 
the three orders, the nobility, the clergy, and the people, bu w i h 
liad not been assembled during a period of nearly two hundred yeais 
7 When the day came for the payment of the dividends to the 
public creditors, the treasury was destitute of funds; much distress 
was occasioned, and an insurrection was feared ; but the removal of 
Brienne, and the restoration of Neckar to office, created coniidence, 
while the most urgent difficulties were removed by te^P""^ ^^P- 
dients, in anticipation of some great change that was to follow the 
meeting of the States-Gcneral,-the remedy that was -~^-;^^ 
called for The court had at first dreaded the convocation of the 
sLs-General, but finding itself involved in a -Btest wit i the pri. 
ileged classes, who assumed all legal and judicial authority, t took 
the bold resolution of throwing itself upon ti,e ^<;f-^ff:i'^l^^^ 
whole people, in the hope that the commons would defend the throne 
against tlie nobility and clergy, as tliey had done, in former times, 
against the feudal aristocracy. 

8 When it was known that the great assembly of the nation wa 
to be convened, a universal ferment seized the public mmd. Social 
reforms, extending to a complete reorganization of society, became 
the order of the day; political pamphlets inundated *« "ount.y 
polities were discussed in every society; theories ^«™'"f ^'^ P°" 
theories; and, in the ardor with which they were combated and de- 
fended vere already to be seen the seeds of those dissensions which 



448 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

afterwards deluged the country with blood. There was abundance 
of evil to be complained of, and it was evident that exclusive privi- 
leges, and the marked division of classes, must be broken down. The 
clergy held one-third of the lands of the kingdom, the nobility an- 
other third ; yet the remaining third was burdened with all the ex- 
penses of government. This was more than could be borne ; yet the 
clergy, the nobility, and the magistracy, obstinately refused the sur- 
render of their exclusive privileges, while, on the other hand,«the 
philosophic party, considering the federal republic of America as a 
model of government, desired to break up the entire frame-work of 
French society, and construct the edifice anew. Such was the state 
of France when the assembly of the States- General was called, a 
measure that was, in itself, a revolution, as it virtually gave back the 
powers of government to the people. The Third-Estate — the Com- 
mons, comprising nearly the whole nation, demanded that its represent- 
atives should equal those of the other two classes — the clergy and the 
nobility. Public opinion called for the concession, and obtained it. The 
result of the elections conformed to the sentiments of the three classes 
in the kingdom : the nobility chose those who were firmly attached to 
the interests and privileges of their order ; the bishops, or clergy, 
chose those who would uphold the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and 
who were more inclined to political freedom than the former ; while 
the commons, or Third-Estate, chose a numerous body of represent- 
atives, firm in their attachment to liberty, and ardently desirous of 
extending the power and influence of the people. 

9. At the opening of the States-General, on the 4th of May, 1789, 
a difficulty arose as to the manner in which the three orders should 
vote ; the clergy and nobility insisting that there should be three 
assemblies, each possessing a veto on the acts of the others, while the 
commons insisted that all should be united in one general assembly, 
without any distinction of orders. The commons managed with 
great tact and adroitness, waiting patiently, day after day, for the 
clergy and nobility to join them, but after more than a month had 
thus passed away, they declared themselves the " National Assembly," 
being, as they asserted, the representatives of ninety-six hundredths, 
at least, of the nation, and therefore the true interpreters of the 
national will. The nobles, alarmed by this sudden boldness of the 
Assembly, implored the monarch to support their rights ; a coalition 
was formed between them and the court, but the public mind was 
against them, and towards the last of June, the clergy and the no- 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENT tin Y. 449 

bilitj, constrained by an order of the sovereign himself, took their 
seats in the hall of the Assembly, where they were soon lost in an 
overwhelming majority. " The family was united, but it gave few 
hopes of domestic union or tranquillity." 

10. The triumph of the third-estate had destroyed the moral power 
and influence of the government : a spirit of insubordination began 
to appear in Paris, caused, in some degree, by the pressure of fam- 
ine; journals and clubs multiplied; declaimers harangued in every 
street, and directed the popular indisrnation against the 

1 • 1 1 • r -1 11 1 1 1 • 1 -1 1 1 '^' REVOLU- 

King and his family ; and the very rabble imbibed the tionaey 
intoxicating spirit of politics. When a regiment of state of 
French troops mutinied, and their leaders were thrown 
into prison, a mob of six thousand men liberated them ; collisions 
took place between the populace and the royal guards ; and the 
former, obtaining a supply of muskets and artillery, attacked the Bas- 
tile, or state prison of Paris, tore the governor in pieces, and inhu- 
manly massacred the guards who had attempted to defend the place. 
(July 14th, 1789.) 

11. Louis, greatly alarmed, now abandoned the counsels of the 
party of the nobles, who had advised him to suppress the threatened 
revolution at the head of his army, and hurrying to the National 
Assembly, craved its support and interference to restore order to the 
capital. At the same time he caused the regular troops to be with- 
drawn from Paris, while the defence of the place was intrusted to a 
body of civic militia, called the National Guards, and placed under 
the command of La Fayette, whose liberal sentiments, and generous 
devotion to the cause of American liberty, had made him the idol of 
the populace. 

12. The union between the king and the National Assembly was 
hailed with transports of joy by the Parisians, and for a few days it 
seemed that the revolution had closed its list of horrors ; but there 
were agents at work who excited and bribed the people to fresh sedi- 
tion. The consequences of the insurrection of the 1 4th July extend- 
ed throughout France ; the peasantry of the provinces, imitating the 
lower orders of the capital in a crusade against the privileged classes, 
everywhere possessed themselves of arms ; the regiments of the line 
declared for the popular side ; many of the chateaux of the nobles 
were burned, and their possessors massacred or expelled, and in a 
fortnight there was no authority in France but what emanated from 
the people. These things produced their effect upon the National 

29 



450 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

Assembly. The deputies of the privileged classes, seeing no escape 

VI G AT ^^'^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ i^^ ^^^ abandonment of those immmiities 

POLITICAL which had rendered them odious, consented to sacrifice 

CHANGES. ^YiQ whole ; the clergy followed the example, and in one 

evening's session the aristocracy and the church descended to the 

level of the peasantry ; the privileged classes were swept away, and 

the political condition of France was changed. (Aug. 4th, 1789.) 

13. An interval of two months now passed over without any 
flagrant scene of popular violence, the Assembly being engaged at 
Versailles in fixing the basis of a national constitution, and the mu- 
nicipality of Paris in procuring bread for the lower orders of the 
Parisians, while the latter, imagining that the lievolution was to 
liberate them from, almost every species of restraint, were rioting in 

the exercise of their newly-acquired freedom. Towards 
vn. FAMINE ^^ latter part of August the famine had become so 

AND MOBS. . . 

severe in Paris, (a natural consequence of the public 
convulsions, and the suspension of credit,) that mobs were frequent 
in the streets, and the baker's shops were surrounded by multitudes 
clamoring for food, while the most extravagant reports were circu- 
lated, charging the scarcity upon the court and the aristocrats. The 
leaders of the populace, artfully fomenting the discontent, instigated 
the mob to demand that the king and the Assembly should be re- 
moved from Versailles to the capital ; and on the 5th of October a 
crowd of the lowest rabble, armed with pikes, forks, and clubs, and 
accompanied by some of the national guards, marched to Versailles. 
They penetrated into the Assembly, vociferously demanding bread, — 
a slight collision occurred between them and some of the king's body 
guards, and during the ensuing night they broke into the palace, 
massacred the guards who opposed them, and had it not been for the 
opportune arrival of La Fayette and his grenadiers, the king him- 
self and the whole royal family would have fallen victims. After 
tranquillity had been partially restored, the king was compelled to 
set out for Paris, accompanied by the tumultuous rabble which had 
sought his life. The National Assembly voted to transfer its sittings 
to the capital. The royal family, on reaching Paris, repaired to the 
Tuilleries, which henceforth became their palace and their prison. 

14. Several months of comparative tranquillity followed this out- 
rage, during which time the formation of the constitution was prose- 
cuted with activity by the Assembly. The feudal system, feudal 
services, and all titles of honor, had been abolished. One general 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 451 

legislative Assembly had been decreed : the absolute veto of the 
. king had been taken away ; and now the immense prop- ^^^^ ^^^ 
erty of the church was appropriated to the State, a meas- constitu- 
ure that' secured the great financial resources which so "°^- 
long upheld the Revolution. In the meantime the training, dividing, 
forming, and marshalling of parties went on. At first, La ^^ ^arshal- 
Fayette, and those who aided him — the moderate friends ung of 
of liberty — prevailed in the Assembly, satisfied with parties. 
constitutional reforms, without desiring to overthrow the monarchy. 
But there was another class — the ultra revolutionists — composed 
of the factious spirits of the Assembly, who afterwards obtained the 
control of that body. Having organized themselves into a club, called 
the club of the Jacobins, from the name of the convent in which 
they assembled, and gathering members from all classes of society, 
they held nightly sittings, where, surrounded by a crowd of the popu- 
lace, they canvassed the acts of the Assembly and formed public opinion. 

15. At one time this club contained more than two thousand five 
hundred members, and corresponded with more than four hundred 
affiliated societies throughout France. It was the hot-bed of sedition, 
and the centralization of anarchy, and it eventually overturned the 
government, and sent forth the sanguinary despots who established 
the Reign of Terror. Barnave, the Lameths, Danton, Marat, and 
Robespierre, were the leaders of the Jacobin faction. Mirabeau, 
the first master-spirit which arose amid the troubles of the times, — a 
man of extraordinary eloquence and talent, but of loose principles — • 
who had at first united with the Jacobins, foreseeing the sanguinary 
excess that already began to tinge the career of the Revolution, at 
length entered into a treaty with the court to use his great influence 
in aiding to establish monarchy on a constitutional basis ; but his 
death, early in 1791, up to which period he had maintained his 
ascendancy in the Assembly, deprived the king of his only hope of 
being able to withstand the Jacobin influence in the National Legis- 
lature. Mirabeau had a clear presentiment of the coming disasters. 
" Soon," said he, " neither the king nor the Assembly will rule the 
country, but a vile faction will overspread it with horrors." 

16. While the machinations of the Jacobins were convulsing 
France, the repose of Europe was threatened by the in- ^ ^^^ 
judicious movements of the emigrant nobility, large emigrant 
numbers of whom, estimated at seventy thousand, dis- n<^^^^^^^- 
gusted with the Revolution, had abandoned their country, resolved to 



452 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

seek the restoration of tlie old government bj the intervention of 
foreign powers. Collecting first at Turin, and afterwards at Co- 
blentz/ thej endeavored to stir up rebellion in the provinces, and 

solicited Louis to sanction their plans, and join their 

ED escape' i^sditated armaments. Louis, accompanied by his queen 

OF THE and children, attempted to escape secretly to the frontiers, 

ROTAL -^^^^ ^^g stopped and brought back a prisoner to his 

capital. (June 1791.) The Jacobins now argued that 
the king's flight was abdication ; and the National Assembly, to ap- 
pease the popular outcry, provisionally suspended him from his 
functions, until the constitution, now nearly completed, was presented 
to him for acceptance. On the 14th of September, 1791, he took 
the oath to maintain it against civil discord and foreign aggression, 
and to enforce its execution to the utmost of his power. The Co?i- 
stituent Assembly^ as that which framed the constitution is often 
called, after having passed a self-denying ordinance that none of its 
members should be elected to the next Assembly, declared itself dis 
solved on the 30th of September, 1791. 

17. But the constitution, thus established, could not be permanent, 
for the minds of the French people were still agitated by the passion 
for change, and the members of the new Legislative Assembly soon 
displayed opinions more radical, and divisions more numerous, than 
their predecessors. The court and the nobility had exercised no in- 
fluence in the late elections ; the upholders of even a mitigated aris- 
tocracy had disappeared ; the assembly was thoroughly democratic ; 
and the only question that seemed to remain for it was the main- 
tenance or the overthrow of the constitutional throne. The chief 
parties in the assembly, at its opening, were the constitutionalists and 
the republicans, — the latter were more usually called Girondists, as 
their most celebrated leaders, Brissot, Petion, and Condorcet, were 
members from the department of the Grironde. The constitutional- 
ists would have preserved the throne, while they stripped it of its 
power ; but the Grirondists, enthusiastic admirers of the Americans, 
despising the vain shadow of royalty, longed for republican institu- 
tions on the model of antiquity. The Jacobins, who were anarchists, 
men without principles, and attached to no particular form of gov 



1. Cohlentz, (the Covfluenies of the Romans,) is a Prussian town in the province of the Rhine, 
at the confluence of tlie Rhine and Moselle. Since the wars of Napoleon it has been strongly 
fortified, and is now deemed one of the principal bulwarks of Germany on the side of France. 
{Map No. XVII.; 



Chap. V.] EIGHCEEJ^TH CENTURY. 453 

ernment, possessed at first little influence in the assembly, but direct- 
ing the passions of the populace, and possessing the means of rousing 
at pleasure the strength of the capital, they soon acquired a prepon- 
derating influence that bore down all opposition, and crushed the more 
moderate revolutionary party of the Girondists. 

18. The legislative assembly commenced its sittings by confiscating 
the property of the emigrants, and denouncing the penalties of treason 
against those refractory priests who refused to take the oath to sup- 
port the constitution ; but the king refused to sanction the decrees. 
It was the great object of the Girondists to involve the kingdom in 
foreign war ; and the warlike preparations of the Austrian emperor 
and the German princes, evidently designed to support the emigrants, 
rendered it an easy matter to carry out their designs. When an 
open declaration of his objects was demanded of the Austrian em- 
peror, he required as a condition on which he would discontinue his 
preparations, that France should return to the form and principles 
of government which existed at the time of the commencement of 
the constituent assembly. Against his own judgment the king yield 
ed to the force of public opinion, and on the 20th of 

April, 1792, war was declared against the court of declared 
Vienna. It must be admitted that the war which arose against 
from so feeble beginnings, but which at length involved 
the world in its conflagration, was not provoked by France, but by 
the foreign powers which unjustly interposed to regulate the laws 
and government of the French people. 

19. While the strife of parties continued in Paris, producing con- 
fusion in the councils of the assembly, and increasing anxiety and 
alarm in the mind of the king, a formidable force was assembling on 
the German frontier with the avowed object of putting down the 
Revolution, and restoring to the king the rights of which he had 
been deprived. The king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria 
engaged to cooperate for this purpose ; and their united forces were 
placed under the command of the Duke of Brunswick, who, towards 
the end of July, entered the French territories at the head of a hun- 
dred and forty thousand men. The threatening manifesto which he 
issued roused at once the spirit of resistance throughout every part 
of France ; the demagogues seized the occasion to direct the popular 
fury against the court, which was accused of leaguing with the enemy ; 
and the two prominent factions, the Girondists and Jacobins, com- 



454 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

bined to overturn the monarchy, each with the view of advancing its 
own separate ambitious designs. 

20. The dethronement of the king was now vehemently discussed 
in all the popular assemblies ; preparations were made in Paris for 
a general revolt ; and soon after midnight on the morning of the 10th 

of August, an infuriate mob attacked and pillaged the 

MASSACRE P^^^ce, massacred the Swiss guards, and forced the 

OF THE king and royal family to seek shelter in the hall of 

TENTH OF ^Yie National Assembly. The assembly protected the 

AUGUST. ^ -^ , _ ^ X- 

person of the king, but, yielding to the demands of the 
conquering populace, passed a decree suspending the royal functions, 
dismissed the ministers, and directed the immediate convocation of a 
National Convention. La Fayette, then in command of the army 
on the eastern frontier, having in vain endeavored to keep his troops 
firm in their allegiance, and being outlawed by the assembly, fled 
into the Netherlands, but was seized and imprisoned by the Aus- 
trians. Dumouriez, who had adhered to the assembly, succeeded to 
the command, and made energetic preparations to resist the coming 
invasion. 

21. The massacre of the 10th of August was soon followed bv 

another of still more frightful atrocity. The prisons of 
ORE OF Paris had become filled with suspected persons ; and the 
SEPTEMBER, igr^^jg^.g, (jf ^hc Jacobius, now occupying the chief places 
in the magistracy, in order to diminish the number of their internal 
enemies planned the massacre of the prisoners. Accordingly, at 
three o'clock on the morning of the 2d of September, a band of 
three hundred hired assassins, accompanied by a frantic mob, entered 
the prisons, and began the work of death. In the court yard of the 
first prison four and twenty priests were hewn in pieces because they 
refused to take the revolutionary oath. In some instances the 
assassins, stained with gore, established tribunals to try their victims, 
and a few minutes, often a few seconds, disposed of the fate of each 
individual. The massacres continued from the 2d to the 6th of 
September, and during this period more than five thousand persons 
perished in the diff"erent prisons of Paris. A committe of the mu- 
nicipality of Paris, declaring that a plot had been formed by the pris- 
oners throughout France to murder all the patriots of the empire, in- 
vited the other cities to imitate the massacres of the capital, but, 
fortunately, none obeyed the summons. 

22. While these shocking excesses were perpetrated in the capital, 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 455 

the armies of Prussia and Austria, wliich had invaded the French 
territories, met with a signal repulse. Dumouriez, pursuing his suc- 
cesses, crossed the Belgian frontier, and on the 6th of November 
gained the battle of Jemappes,^ which gave him possession of all the 
Austrian Netherlands. With so much rapidity and decision did 
Dumouriez execute the skilful movements of the army, that the allies 
soon found there was no want of able generals among the French. 
At the battle of Jemappes, the enthusiasm and martial spirit of the 
French, displaying themselves in all their brilliancy, bore down all 
obstacles, and redoubt after redoubt was stormed and taken, to the 
chant of the Marseilles Hymn.^' 

23. The National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative 
Assembly, inflamed by this first great victory of the Revolution, pub- 
lished a decree offering the alliance of the French to every nation 
that desired to recover its liberties, — a decree which was equivalent 
to a declaration of war against all the monarchies of Europe. One step 
further was necessarv to complete the Revolution, and 

XV TRIAL 

that was the death of the kind-hearted and unfortunate and exeou- 
monarch. On the ridiculous charge of having engaged tion of 
in a conspiracy for the subversion of freedom, on the 
26th of December Louis XVI. was brought before the Convention, 
and, after a trial which lasted twenty days, was declared guilty, and 
condemned to death by a majority of twenty-six votes out of seven 
hundred and twenty-one. Nearly all of those who had voted for his 
death subsequently perished on the scaffold, during the sanguinary 
"reign of Terror," which soon followed. On the 21st of January, 
1793, Louis was led out to execution. He met death with magna- 
nimity and firmness, amid the insults of his cruel executioners. His 
fate will be commiserated, and his murderers execrated, so long as 
justice or mercy shall prevail on the earth. 

J. Jemappes (zhera-map) is a small village of Belgium, near Mons, forty-four miles south, 
west from Brussels. The Duke de Chartres, afterwards Louis Philippe king of the French, 
acted as the lieutenant of Dumouriez during the battle of Jemappes, and by his intrepidity at 
the head of a column aided essentially in winning the day. 

a. The famous Marseilles Hymn, the national song of the French patriots and warriors, was 
composed by Joseph Rouget de I'lsle, (.roozha de leel,) a young engineer ofBcer, early in the 
French Eevolution. It was ai first called the "Offering to Liberty," but received its present 
name because it was first publicly sung by the Marseilles confederates in f^Oi. Both the words 
and the music are peculiarly inspiriting. So great was the inauence of this song over the ex- 
citable French, that it was suppressed under the empire and the Bourbons ; but the Revolution 
of 1830 called it up anew, and it has since become again the national song of the French 
people. 



456 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

24. The Girondists, who had been the first to fan the flame of 

revolution, were the first to sufi"er by its violence. Ardent 

XVI. FALL republicans in principle, but humane and benevolent in 
OF THE their sentiments, they had not desired the death of the 

GIRONDISTS, j^.^^^^ ^^^ ^j^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ restrain the mad fury of the 

Jacobins. The latter, a base faction in the convention, taunted the 
former with having endeavored to save the tyrant : their partisans, 
throughout Paris, roused the feelings of the populace against the 
Girondists : a powerful insurrection ^ deprived the convention of its 
liberty : thirty of the leading members of the Girondist party were 
given up and imprisoned ; and those who had not the fortune to es- 
cape from Paris were brought to trial, condemned, without being 
heard in their defence, and speedily executed,^ and all for no other 
crime than having tried to prevent the execution of the king, to 
avenge the massacres of September, and to allay the desolating storm 
of violence and crime that was spreading terror and dismay over 
their country. 

25. After the fall of the Girondists, the victorious Jacobins, at 
the head of whom were Danton, Marat, Robespierre, and their asso- 
ciates, obtained control of the " Committee of Public Safety," a for- 
midable Revolutionary tribunal, in which was vested the whole power 
of the convention and of the government. Some opposition was 
indeed made, by the magistracies of the cities and towns throughout 
a great part of France, to this central power, and at one time seventy 
departments were in a state of insurrection against the convention ; 
but the vigorous measures of the Parisian Revolutionists soon broke 
this formidable league. Revolutionary committees, radiating from 
the central Jacobin power in Paris, extended their network over the 
whole kingdom ; and these committees, having the power of arrest- 
ing the obnoxious and the suspected, and numbering more than five 
hundred thousand individuals, often drawn from the very dregs of 
society, held the fortunes and lives of every man in France at their 
disposal. 

26. The prisons throughout France were speedily filled with vic- 

tims ; forced loans were exacted with rigor ; Terror, was 

XVII. THK ' o ' 

RKiGN OF made the order of the day ; and the guillotine* was put 
TERROR. j,jj requisition to do its work of death. The cjueeu was 

* QuiUotinc — so called from the name of the inventor — is an engine or machine for b©- 
headuig persons at a stroke. 
a. May 3l3t. b. Oct. 31st. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 457 

brought to the scaffold,'^ and the dauphin, thrown into prison, ere 
long fell a victim to the barbarous neglect of his keepers. Irreligion 
and impiety raised their heads above the mass of pollution and crime : 
the Sabbath was abolished by law : the sepulchres of the ^^^^j ,^^^_ 
kings of France were ordered to be destroyed, that every umph of 
memorial of royalty might be blotted out ; and the ^^'^i^^^""^'- 
leaders of the municipality of Paris, in the madness of atheism, pub- 
licly expressed their determination '' to dethrone the king of Heaven 
as well as the monarchs of the earth." As the crowning act of this 
drama of wickedness, the Goddess of Reason, personified by a beauti- 
ful female, was introduced into the convention, and declared to be 
the only divinity worthy of adoration : — the churches were closed — 
religion everywhere abandoned — and on all the public cemeteries was 
placed the inscription, " Death is an Eternal Sleep." 

27. After the downfall of the Girondists and the party attached to 
a constitutional monarchy, divisions arose among the Jacobin leaders. 
The sanguinary Marat had already fallen by the dagger of the devoted 
heroine, Charlotte Corday, who voluntarily sacrificed her ^^^ ^^^^^ 
own life in the hope of saving her country. The more of the 
moderate portion of the Revolutionary leaders, Danton, ^'^^'^^^^^^'s- 
Cpanille Desmoulins, and their supporters, who had so recently roused 
the populace against the Gironde, were ere long charged with show- 
ing too much clemency^ and brought to the scafibld.!^ The Repub- 
lican Girondists had sought to prevent the Reign of Terror — the 
Dantonists to arrest it ; and both perished in the attempt. There- 
after there seemed not a hope left for France. The revolutionary 
excesses everywhere increased : those who kept aloof from them were 
suspected, and condemned ; and the power of Death was relentlessly 
wielded by such a combination of monsters of wickedness as the 
world had never before seen. 

28. Having pursued the internal history of the Revolution down 
to the fall of the Dantonists in March 1794, we resume the narra- 
tive of affairs at the beginning of 1793. The death of ^^ ^^^^ 
Louis XVI., which derives its chief importance from against 
the principle which the revolutionists thereby proclaimed, ^-^'^"O^^- 
excited profound terror in France, and feelings of astonishment and 
indignation throughout Europe. France thereb}'' placed herself in 
avowed and unrelenting hostility to the established governments of the 
neighboring States; and it was universally felt that the period had 

a. Oct. 10th, J71i3. b. JJarch 5th, 1794. 



458 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

now arrived when she must conquer the coalition of thrones, or perish 
under its blows. The convention did not wait to be attacked, but 
forthwith, on various pretexts, declared war against England, Spain, 
and Holland, and ordered the increase of the armies of the republic 
to more than five hundred thousand men. 

29. Early in 1793 the English and Prussians combined to check 
the progress of the French in Holland, and on the 18th of March 
Dumouriez was defeated in the battle of Neerwinde. Soon after 
this repulse, the French general, disgusted with the excesses of the 
revolutionists in Paris, and finding himself suspected by both Giron- 
dists and Jacobins, entered into a negotiation with the allied generals 
for a coalition of forces to aid in the establishment of a constitutional 
monarchy in France ; but his army did not share his feelings, and 
being denounced by the convention, and a price set upon his head, 
he was obliged to take refuge in the Austrian lines. 

30. After the defection of Dumouriez, Custine was appointed to 
the command of the north, then severely pressed by the allies near 
Valenciennes ; but being unable to check the progress of the enemy, 
he was deprived of his command, ordered to Paris, and, soon after, 
condemned and executed on the charge of misconduct. The revolu- 
tionary government, seeing no merit but in success, placed its gen- 
erals in the alternative of victory or death, and employed the terrors 
of the guillotine as an incentive to patriotism. The fall of Valen- 
ciennes seemed to open to the allies a way to Paris, but, pursuing in- 
dependent plans of aggrandizement, they injudiciously divided their 
forces, and before the close of the year, were driven back across the 
frontier. 

31. Early in the same year Spain had despatched an army of fifty- 
five thousand men for the invasion of France by the way of the 
Pyrenees ; but although the French, who advanced to meet them, 
were driven back, the campaign in that quarter w^as characterized by 
no event of importance. In the meantime, in the west of France, 
the insurrectionary war of La Vendee was occupying the troops of 
the convention ; and on the side of Italy the allies were aided by 
the revolt of Marseilles, Lyons, and Toulon. 

32. In La Vendee, a large district bordered on the north by the 

Loire, and on the west by the ocean, containing eight 

RECTiox OK hundred thousand souls, the Royalists, embracing nearly 

LA VENDEE, ^j^^ eutirc population, had early taken up arms in the 

cause of their church and their king. This district soon became the 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 459 

theatre of innumerable conflicts, in which the undisciplined peasantry 
of La Vendee at first had the advantage, from their peculiar mode 
of fighting, and the nature of their country. On the 10th of June, 
1793, they obtained a great victory at Saumur,^ where their trophies 
amounted to eighty pieces of cannon, ten thousand muskets, and 
eleven thousand prisoners ; but on the 29th of the same month they 
were defeated in their attempt on Nantes, where their brave leader 
Cathelineau was mortally wounded. During the summer two inva- 
sions of the country of the Yendeans was made by large bodies of 
the republican troops under skilful generals, who were defeated and 
driven back with severe loss. The convention, at length aroused to a 
full sense of the danger of this war, surrounded La Vendee with an army 
of two hundred thousand men, who, by a simultaneous advance, threat- 
ened a speedy extinction of the revolt. But the republican troops 
who had penetrated the country were cut off in detail — the veterans 
of Kleber were defeated near Torfou,^ and before the close of Sep- 
tember the Vendean territory was freed from its invaders. 

33. Again the convention made the most vigorous efforts to sup- 
press the insurrection. Their forces penetrated the country in every 
direction, and, with unrelenting and uncalled-for cruelty, burned the 
towns and villages that fell into their hands, and put the inhabitants, 
of every age and sex, to the sword. Defeated ^ in the battle of 
Cholet,^ and their country in the possession of their enemies, a 
large portion of the surviving Vendeans, with their wives and chil- 
dren, crossed the Loire into Brittany, with the hope of obtaining 
assistance from their countrymen in that quarter. In the battle of 
Chateau Gonthier,'' fighting with the courage of despair, they gained 
a decisive victory over the Republican forces, whose loss amounted to 
twelve thousand men and nineteen pieces of cannon. This victory 
was gained on the very day when the orator Barrere announced in 
the convention, " the war is ended, and La Vendee is no more." 
Great then was the consternation in Paris when it was known that 
the Republican army was dispersed, and that nothing remained to 
prevent the advance of the Royalists to the capital. 

1. Saumur is on the southern bank of the Loire, in the former province of Anjou, one hundrea 
and fifty-seven miles south-west from Paris. (Map No. XIII.) 

2. Torfou was a small village in the northern part of La Vendee, a short distance south-east 
from Nantes. (Map No. XIII.) 

3. Owlet (sho-Ia) is nearly forty miles south-east from Nantes. {Map No. XIII.) 

4. Chateau Oonthier is sixty miles north east from Nantes. {Map No. XIII.) 

a. Oct. 17th, 1793. 



460 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

34. But the Yendeans were divided in their councils. Induced by 
the hope of succors from England, they directed their march to the 
coast, and, after laying siege to Granville,^ where they expected the 
cooperation of the English, were at length compelled to retreat, with 
heavy loss. Defeated f^ at Mans,'' and having experienced a final 
overthrow'' at Savenay,^ they slowly melted away in the midst of their 
enemies, fighting with unyielding courage to the last. Out of nearly 
a hundred thousand who had crossed the Loire, scarcely three thou- 
sand returned to La Yendee, and most of these fell by the hands of 
their pursuers, or, brought to a hasty trial, perished on the scafi"old.<^ 

35. The discontents in the south of France against the measures 

of the convention first broke out in open insurrection at 
RECTioN IN Marseilles, which was soon reduced to submission, while 
THE SOUTH a large proportion of the inhabitants fled to Toulon. In 
OF FRANCE, ^j^^ meantime Lyons had revolted. During four months 
it was in a state of vigorous siege ; and sixty thousand men were 
employed before the place at the time of its surrender in October, 
1793. All the houses of the wealthy were demolished, and nearly 
the entire city destroyed. In the course of five months after the 
surrender of the place, more than six thousand of the citizens sufiered 
death by the hands of the executioners, and more than twelve thou- 
sand were driven into exile. 

36. On the fall of Lyons the Ptepublican troops immediately 
marched to the investment of Toulon, whose defence was assisted by 
an English and Spanish squadron. The artillery of the besiegers 
was commanded by a young Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, who re- 
mained faithful to France, in which he had been educated. By his 

1. Oranville is a fortified seaport town of France, on the western coast of Normandy, one 
hundred and eighty miles west from Paris. Granville was bombarded and burned by the Eng- 
lish in 1695, and was partly destroyed by the Vendean troops in 1793. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. Mans is situated on the left bank of the river Sarihe, a northern tributary of the Loire, 
cue hundred and twenty miles south-west from Paris. {Mnp No. XIII.) 

3. Savenay is a town 0!i the northern bank of the Loire, twenty-two miles north-west from 
Nantes. Here the Vendeans fought with the courage of despair, and their guard, protecting a 
crowd of hapless fugitives— the aged, the wounded, women and children — continued to resist, 
■with their swords and bayonets, long after all their ammuniiion had been expended, and until 
they all fell under the fire of the Republicans. (Map No. Xllf.) 

a. Dec. 10th, 1793. b. Dec. 22d, 1793. 

c. The most prominent of the Vendean leaders were Larochejacquelin, Bonchamps, Cathe- 
lineau, Lescure, D'Elbe, Stofilet, and Charette. Nearly all of these, and most of their families, 
perished in this sanguinary strife, or on the scaffold. Among those Avho were saved by Iho 
courageous hospitality of the peasantry were the wives of Larochejacquelin and Bonchamps. 
who, after escaping unparalleled dangers, lived to fascinate the world by the splendid story of 
tlieir husbands' virtues and their own misIbrUuies. 



Chap. V.J EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 461 

exertions a fort commanding the harbor was taken, and the place, 
being thus rendered untenable, was speedily evacuated ^ by the allies, 
who carried av/ay with them more than fourteen thousand of the 
wretched inhabitants — being so many saved from the vengeance of 
the Revolutionary tribunals. 

37. Thus terminated the memorable campaign of 1793. In the 
midst of internal dissensions and civil war, while France was drenched 
with the blood of her own citizens, and the world stood aghast at the 
atrocities of her " Reign of Terror," the national councils had shown 
uncommon military talent and unbounded energy. The invasion, on 
the north, had been defeated ; the Prussians had been driven back 
from the Rhine ; the Spaniards had recrossed the Pyrenees ; the 
English had retired from Toulon ; and the revolt of La Vendee had 
been extinguished ; while an enthusiastic army, of more than a mil- 
lion of men, stood ready to enforce and defend the principles of the 
Revolution against all the crowned heads of Europe. 

[1794.] 38. The fall of Danton and his associates, which occurred 
in the early part of 1794,^ was followed by unqualified submission 
to the central power of Paris, from every part of France. For a 
time the work of proscription had been confined to the higher orders; 
but when it had descended to the middling classes, and when, even 
after all the enemies of the Revolution had been cut off, there seemed 
no limit to its onward course, humanity began to revolt at the cease- 
less effusion of human blood, and courage arose out of despair. 

39. In the convention itself, which, long stupefied by terror, had 
become the passive instrument of Robespierre and his 

"^ 2lJl1II. K ALiLi 

associates, a conspiracy against the tyrant was at length of robes- 
formed amonsj those whose destruction he had already ^^^^^'^' ^^^ 

° , -^ END OF THK 

planned, — not of the good against the bad, but a con- reign of 
spiracy of one set of assassins against another : his ar- terror. 
rest was ordered : he was declared out of the pale of the law ; and, 
after a brief struggle, he was condemned, with twenty of his associates, 
by the same Revolutionary Tribunal which he himself had estab- 
lished, and sent to the scaffold, where he perished amid the exulting 
shouts of the populace. On the following day sixty of the most ob- 
noxious members of the municipality of Paris met the same fate. 
Thus terminated that Reign of Terror, which, under the cloak of 
Republican virtue, had not only overturned the throne and the alter, 
and driven the nobles of France into exile, and her priests into cap- 

a. Dec. 20th, 1793. b. March 5th. See p. 



462 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11 

tivity, but which had also shed the blood of more than a million of 
her best citizens.* 

40. The fall of Robespierre placed the direction of public affairs 
in the hands of more moderate men ; but the genius of Carnot still 
controlled the military operations, which were conducted with remark- 
able energy and success. In consequence of the extinction of civil 
employments, and the forced requisition on the people, the whole 
talent of France was centered in the army, whose numbers, by the be- 
ginning of October, 1794, amounted to twelve hundred thousand men. 
After deductiug the garrisons, the sick, and those destined for the 
service of the interior, there remained upwards of seven hundred 
thousand ready to act on the offensive ; — a greater force than could 
then be raised by all the monarchies of Europe. The French territory 
resembled an immense military camp, and all the young men of the 
country seemed pressing to the frontier to join the armies. 

41. England, at the head of the allies in the war against France, 
XXIV THE ^^^^ preparations that were considered " unparalleled;" 

ENGLISH and it was soon easy to see that the latter was destined 
VICTORIOUS ^Q become irresistible on land, and the former to acquire 

AT SEA, AND ' ■'• 

THE FRENCH thc domiuiou of the seas. In the early part of the season 
ON LAND, ^jjg French were dispossessed of all their West India 
possessions ; the island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean, was cap- 
tured ; and on the 1st of June, a French fleet of twenty-six ships of 
the line was defeated, and six vessels taken by the English admiral 
Howe, off the western coast of France. But numerous victories on 
the land far more than compensated for these losses ; and the cam- 
paign was one of the most glorious in the annals of France. At the 
beginning of the year the allies were pressing heavily on all the 
frontiers : at its close, the Spaniards, defeated in Biscay' and Cata- 
lonia, were suing for peace : the Italians, driven over the Alps, were 
trembling for the fate of their own country : the allied forces had 
everywhere reorossed the Rhine : Holland had been revolutionized 

1. Biscay is a district of northern Spain, on the Bay of Biscay, and adjoining France. It 
comprises Biscay Proper, Alava, and Guipuzcoa, — the three Basque provinces. The Basques 
have a peculiar language, which is undoubtedly of great autiqulty. Some have attempted to 
trace it, as a dialect of the Phoenician, to the Hebrew. It has some similarity to the Hungarian 
and Turkish. {Map No. Xlll.) 

* The Republican writer, Prudhomrae, gives a list of one million, twenty-two thousand 
three hundred and fifty-one persons, who suflFered a violent death during this period, of whom 
more than eighteen thousand perished by the guillotine. In his enumeration are not included 
the massacres at Versailles— in the prisons, &c.— nor those shot at Toulon and Marseilles. 



Chap, v.] ' EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 463 

and subdued ; and the English troops had returned home, or had fled 
for refuge into the States of Hanover. 

42. The failure of the allies in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 
was in great part owing to a want of cordial cooperation 

among them, occasioned by the prospect held out to partition 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, of obtaining a further share ^*' i'oland. 
in the partition of ill-fated Poland. While Poland was a prey to 
civil dissensions, it was invaded in 1792 by Russia, and early in the 
following year by Prussia ; and the result was a second partition of 
the Polish territory among the invading powers, with the concurrence 
and sanction of Austria, — the king of Prussia assigning as reasons 
for his treachery and disregard of former treaties, that the " danger- 
ous principles of French Jacobinism were fast gaining ground in that 
country." 

43. Scarcely had this iniquitous scheme been consummated, when 
the patriots of Poland, with Kosciusko at their head, arose against 
their invaders, whom they drove from the country. But ^^^^ tihrd 
Poland was too feeble to contend successfully against partition 
the fearful odds that were brought against her. Kosciusko ^*" ^^^''''^^• 
was defeated, wounded, and taken prisoner by the Russians ; and 
the result of the brief struggle was the third and last partition 
of Poland, among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. To effect this un- 
hallowed object, Austria and Prussia had withdrawn a portion of 
their troops from the French frontiers, and thus the time was allowed 
to pass by, when a check might have been given to French ambition. 

[1795.] 44. The first coalition against the French Republic, 

formed in March 1793, embraced England, Austria, ^^^^^ ^^g_ 

Prussia, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the two Sicilies, the solution of 

Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont ; but the successes "^"^ ^^^^'^ 
' ; ' _ _ coalition 

of France in the campaign of 1794 led to the dissolution against 
of this confederacy early in 1 795. The conquest of Hoi- fp-ance. 
land decided the wavering policy of Prussia, which now, by a treaty 
of peace, agreed to live on friendly terms with the Republic, and 
not to furnish succor to its enemies ; and before the first of August, 
Spain also, completely humbled, withdrew from the coalition ; and 
thus the whole weight of the war fell on Austria and England. 
Russia had indeed already become a party to the war against France, 
but her alliance was as yet productive of no results, as the attention 
of the Empress Catherine was wholly engrossed in securing the im- 
mense territories which had fallen to her by the partition of Poland. 



464 MODER:^ history. {Part II. 

45. During the year 1795 tlie reaction against the Reign of Terror 
was general throughout France : the Jacobin clubs were broken up, 
the Parisian populace disarmed, and many of the prominent mem- 
bers of the Revolutionary tribunals justly expiated their crimes on 

the scaffold. As yet all the powers of government were 
NEW CON- centered in the National Convention ; but the people now 
sTiTUTioN. i,Qgr^Yi to demand of it a constitution, and the surrender 
of the dictatorship which it had so long exercised. A constitution 
was formed, by which the legislative power was divided between two 
Councils, appointed by delegates chosen by the people, that of the Five- 
Hundred, and that of the Ancie?its, the former having the power of 
originating laws, and the latter that of passing or rejecting them. The 
executive power was lodged in the hands of a Directory of five mem- 
bers, nominated by the council of Five-Hundred, and approved by 
that of the Ancients. 

46. This constitution was to be submitted to the armies of the 
people for ratification : but the convention, composed of the very 

men who had at first directed the Revolution, who had 

■yV'TV IN'STTR." 

RECTioN IN voted for the death of the king, and the execution of the 
PARIS. Grirondists, and who had finally overthrown the tyrant 
Robespierre, still unwilling abruptly to relinquish its power, decreed 
that two -thirds of their number should have a seat in the new legis- 
lative councils. This measure met with great opposition, and caused 
intense excitement. Although the armies, and a large majority of 
the people, accepted the constitution, a formidable insurrection against 
the convention broke out in Paris, headed by the Royalists, compris- 
ing many of the best citizens, and supported by the Parisian National 
Guard numbering thirty thousand men, but destitute of artiller}'. 
The convention, hastily collecting to its support a body of five thou- 
sand regular troops assembled in the neighborhood of Paris, placed 
them under the command of General Barras, who intrusted all his 
military arrangements to his second in command, the young artillery 
officer who had distinguished himself in the reduction of Toulon — 
Napoleon Bonaparte. The latter was indefatigable in making pre- 
parations for the defence of the convention, and when his little band 
was surrounded and attacked by the Parisians, he replied at once by 
a discharge of cannon loaded with grape shot, firing with as much 
spirit as though he were directing his guns upon Austrian battalions. 
In a few hours tranquillity was restored ; and this was the /ast in- 
surrection of the people in the French Revolution. The new gov- 



Chap v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 465 

ernment being established, the convention, which had passed through 
so many stormy scenes, and had experienced so great changes in 
sentiment, determined to finish its career by a signal act of clemency, 
and after having abolished the punishment of death, and published a 
general amnesty, it declared its mission of consolidating the Repub- 
lic accomplished, and its session closed. (Oct. 26th, 1795.) 

47. The military events of 1795 were of much less importance 
than those of the two former years. England indeed maintained her 
supremacy at sea ; but the Austrians barely sustained themselves in 
Italy ; and success was evenly balanced on the side of Germany ; 
while a general lassitude, and uncommon financial embarrassments, 
the result of the recent extraordinary revolutionary exertions, pre- 
vailed throughout J^ance. 

[1796.] 48. In the spring of 1796 the French Directory sent 
three armies into the field ; that of the Sambre and 

' XXX. INVA- 

Meuse,^ under Jourdan, numbering seventy thousand sion of 
men ; that of the Rhine and Moselle, under Moreau, Germany. 
numbering seventy-five thousand ; and the army of Italy under Bona- 
parte, numbering forty-two thousand. Jourdan and Moreau made 
successful irruptions into Germany, but they were stopped in their 
mid-career of victory by the Arch-duke Charles of Austria, one of 
the ablest generals of his time, and eventually compelled to retreat 
across the Rhine. 

49. The operations of the army of Bonaparte in Italy were 
more eventful. Although opposed by greatly supe- 
rior forces, the indefatigable energy and extraordinary army 
military talents of the youthful general crowned the italy. 
campaign with a series of brilliant victories, almost unparalleled in 
the annals of war. Napoleon, on assuming the command, found his 
army in an almost destitute condition, maintaining a doubtful contest 
on the mountain ridges of the Italian frontier. Rapidly forcing his 
way into tlie fertile plains of the interior, he soon compelled the 
king of Sardinia to purchase a dishonorable peace, subdued Piedmont, 
conquered Lombardy, humbled all the Italian States, and defeated, 
and almost destroyed, four powerful armies wliich Austria sent against 
him. The battles of Montenotte^ and Millessimo,^ the terrible pas- 



1. Savibre and Meuse. The Sambre unites wilh the Meuse at Namur. (J\Iap No. XV.) 

2. April 11-1'2, 179(3. Montenotte is a mountain ridge near the Mediterranean, a short dis- 
tance west from Genoa. 

3. April 13-]4. Millcssimo is a small village twenty-eight miles west from Genoa. 



XXX r. THE 
OF 



466 MODERN HISTORY. [Part It. 

sage of the bridge of Lodi/ the victory of Aiicole,*^ and fall of Man- 
tua^ — in fine, the brilliant results of the caTnpaign, excited the utmost 
enthusiasm throughout France, and Napoleon at once became the 
favorite of the people. The councils of government repeatedly de- 
creed that the army of Italy had deserved well of their country ; 
and the standard which Napoleon had borne on the bridge of Arcole 
was given to him to be preserved as a precious trophy in his famity. 
50. England had for some time been greatly agitated by a division 
of opinion respecting the policy of continuing the war 
TURBANCEs agalust France ; important parliamentary reforms were 
IN ENGLAND, (jemaudcd ;"'^ party spirit became extremely violent ; and 
on several occasions the country seemed on the brink of revolution. •* 
Added to these internal difficulties, in the month of August, 1796, 
Spain concluded a treaty c of alliance, offensive and defensive, with 
France, and this was followed, in the month of October,^ by a formal 
declaration of war against Great Britain. Still, England maintained 
her supremacy at sea, and greatly extended her conquests in the 
East and West Indies,^ while a powerful expedition' which France 
had prepared for the invasion of Ireland was dispersed by tempests, 
and obliged to return without even effecting a landing. 

1. May 10th. The bridge of Lodi crosses the Adda, twenty miles south-west from ]Milan. 
{Map No. XVII.) 

2. Nov. 15-17. Areola is a small village a short distance east of the Adige, thirteen miles 
south-west from Verona, and one hundred miles east from Milan. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Mantua is a fortified town of Austrian Italy, on both sides of the Mincio, twenty -one miles 
south-west from Verona. It derives its principal celebrity from its being the native country of 
Virgil. After the conquest of northern Italy by Charlemagne, Mantua became a republic, and 
continued under that form of government till the twelfth century, when the Gonzaga family 
acquired the chief direction of its afifairs. They were subsequently raised to the title of dukes, 
and held possession of Mantua till 1707, when It was taken by the Austrians, Mantua sur- 
rendered to Napoleon, Feb. 2d, 1797, after a siege of nearly six months. In July, 1799, it sur- 
rendered to the Austrians, after a siege of nearly four months. {Map No. XVII.) 

a. For increasing democratic power &c., for which purpose there were numerous associations 
throughout the kingdom, and the reformers were charged with a desire of subverting the mon- 
archy, and establishing a republican constitution, similar to that of France. 

b. Kings' carriage surrounded — pelted with stones, &c., Oct. 29th, 1795, and the monarch nar- 
rowly escaped the fury of the populace. A crisis in money matters compels the Bank of Eng- 
land to suspend cash payments, Feb. 1797. Discontents in the navy, and mutiny of the channel 
fleet, April, 1797. Second mutiny, May and June, and blockade of the Thames. 

c. Of San Ildefonso. 

d. Oct. 2d. 

e. St. Lucia, Essequibo, and Demarara, in the West Indies, were reduced in May, 1796, and 
early in the same year Ceylon, the Malaccas, Cochin, Trincomalee, &.C., in the East Indies. The 
Cape of Good Hope had been previously taken by the English. 

f. The French fle«t under Hoche, carrying twenty-five thousand land forces, sailed Dec. 15th, 
1796. A formidable conspiracy existed in Ireland to throw off the English yoke and establish 
a republican government, and alliance with France. 



Chap, v.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 467 

[1797.] 51. Early in the spring of 1797, Napoleon, after stimu- 
lating: the ardor of his soldiers by a spirited address,* in 

XXXIII. 

which he recounted to them the splendid victories which napoleon's 
they had already won, set out from Northern Italyb at Austrian 
the head of sixty thousand men, in several divisions, to 
carry the war into the hereditary States of Austria. Opposed to 
him was the Arch-duke Charles at the head of superior forces, only 
a part of which, however, could be brought into the field at the be- 
ginning of the campaign. Rapidly passing over the mountains, Na- 
poleon drove his enemies before him, and was ready to descend into 
the plains which spread out before the Austrian capital, when pro- 
posals of peace were made and accepted ; and in less than a month 
after the first movement of the army from winter quarters, the pre- 
liminaries of a treaty between France and Austria were 

XXXIV. 

signed.*^ Tke final treaty was concluded at Campo tp.eaty of 
Formio' on the 17th of October following. Spain and campo 
Holland suffered severely in this war : Austria was re- 
munerated for the loss of Mantua by the cession of Venice ; while 
France obtained a preponderating control over Italy, and her frontiers 
were extended to the Hhiue. Thus terminated the brilliant Italian 
campaigns of Napoleon. Italy was the greatest sufferer in these 
contests. " Her territory was partitioned ; her independence ruined, 
her galleries pillaged; — the trophies of art had followed the car of 
victory ; and the works of immortal genius, which no wealth could 
purchase, had been torn from their native seats, and violently trans- 
planted into a foreign soil."'^ 

52. During these events of foreign war, the strife of parties was 
raging in France. In the elections of May, 1797, the Royalists pre- 
vailed by large majorities, and royalist principles were boldly advo- 
cated in the legislative councils, — so great a change had been pro- 

]. Campo Formic is a small town and castle of northern Italy, near the head of the Adriatic. 
The negotiations for this peace were carried on by the Austrians at Udine, a short distance 
north-east of Campo Formio, and by Bonaparte at the castle of Passeriano. The treaty was 
dated at Campo Formio, because this place lay between Udine and Passeriano, althougli the 
ambassadors bad never held any conferences there. (Map No. XVII.) 

a " You have been victorious," said he, " in fourteen pitched battles and seventy combats ; 
you have made one hundred thousand prisoners, taken five hundred pieces of field artillery, 
two thousand of heavy calibre, and four sets of jwutoons. The contributions you have levied 
on the vanquished countries have clothed, led, and paid the arniy ; you have, besides, added 
thirty millions of francs to the public treasury, and you have enriched tlie museum of Purls 
with three hundred masterpieces of the works of art, the produce of thirty centuries." 

b. March 10th. c. April 9th, at Judemberg. tl. Alison, 



MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

diiced in public opinion by the sanguinary excesses of the Revolution. 

But the vigilance of the Eevolutionary party was again aroused^ 

and the Directory, who were the Republican leaders, becoming 

alarmed for their own existence, but being assured of the support 

of the army, determined upon decisive measures. On the 

LisHMENT ^^g^^^ ^^ the 3d of September, twelve thousand troops, 

OF MixiTARy under the command of Augereau, and with the concurring 

iT FRANCE ^^^PP^^i't c>f Napoleon, were introduced into the capital ; 

the Royalist leaders, and the obnoxious members of the 

two councils, were seized and imprisoned ; and when the Parisians 

awoke from their sleep, they found the streets filled with troops, the 

walls covered with proclamations, and military despotism established.* 

The Directory now took upon themselves the supreme power, while 

their opponents were banished to the pestilential marshes of Guiana.* 

53. The year 1798 opened with immense military preparations 
[1198] for tbe invasion of England, the only power then 

XXXVI. PRE- at war with France. Unusual activity prevailed, not 
FOR THF. IN- o^V ^" t^® harbors of France and Holland, but also of 
vAsioN OK Spain and Italy : all the naval resources of France were 
put in requisition, and an army of nearly one hundred 
and fifty thousand men was collected along the English Channel, 
under the name of the Army of England, the command of which was 
given to Napoleon. But the hazards of the expedition induced Na- 
poleon to direct his ambitious views to another quarter, and, after 
xxxvji considerable difficulty, he persuaded the Directory to 
EXPEDITION give him the command of an expedition to Egypt, a 
TO EG-kPT. pj.Qyij^(3g Qf i]^Q Turkish empire. The ultimate objects 
of Napoleon appear to have been, not only to conquer Egypt and 
Syria, but to strike at the Indian possessions of England by the 
overland route through Asia, and after a series of conquests that 
should render his name as terrible as that of Ghenghis Khan or Tam- 
erlane, establish an Oriental empire that should vie with that of Al- 
exander. 

54. Filled with these visions of military glory. Napoleon sailed 
from Toulon on the 19th of May with a fleet of five hundred sail, 
carrying about forty thousand soldiers, and ten thousand seamen. 
He took with him artisans of all kinds ; he formed a complete col- 
lection of philosophical and mathematical instruments ; and about 

1. Frevch Guiana. See Surinam, p. 393. 

a. Called the RevoluUon o.'' llie eighteenth Fructidor. 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 469 

a hundred of the most ilhistrlous scientific men of France, reposing 
implicit confidence in the youthful general, hastened to join the ex- 
pedition, whose destination was still unknown to them. 

55. The fleet first sailed to Malta,' which quickly surrendered » 
its almost impregnable fortresses to the sovereignty of France, — the 
way having been previously prepared by a conspiracy fomented by 
the secret agents of Napoleon. Fortunate in avoiding the fleet of 
the English admiral Nelson, then cruising in the Mediterranean, the ar- 
mament arrived before Alexandria on the first of July, and Napo- 
leon, hastily landing a part of his forces, marched against the city, 
which he took by storm before the dismayed Turks had time to 
make preparations for defence. 

56. With consummate policy Napoleon proclaimed to the Arab 
population^ that he had come to protect their religion, restore their 
rights, and punish their usurpers, the Mamelukes; and thus he 
sought, by arming one part of the people against the other, to 

1. Malta. (See also p. 152.) On Ihe decline of the Roman empire Malta fell under the do- 
minion of the Goths, and afterwards of the Saracens. It was subject to the crown of Sicily 
from 1190 to 1525, when the emperor Charles V. conferred it on the Knights Hospitallers of 
St. John, who had been expelled from Rhodes by the Turks. In 1565 it was unsuccessfully be- 
sieged by the Turks; the knights, under their heroic master Valette, founder of the city called 
by his name, finally compelling the enemy to retreat with great loss. In 1798 it fell into the 
haiids of Napoleon ; but the French garrisons surrendered to the English, Sept. 5th, 1800. The 
treaty of Paris, in 1814, annexed the island to Great Britain. 

a. June 12th, 1798. 

b. The population of Egypt at this time, consisting of the wrecks of several nations, was 
composed of three classes ; Copts, Arabs, and Tnrks. Tlie Copts, the ancient inhabitants of 
Egypt, a poor, despised, and brutalized race, amoiinted at most to two hundred thousand. 
The Arabs, subdivided into several classes, formed the great mass of the population : 1st, there 
were the Sheiks or chiefs, great landed proprietors, who were at the head of the priesthood, 
the magistracy, religion, and learning : 2d, there was a large class of smaller landholders ; and, 
3d, the great mass of the Arab population, who, as hired peasants, by the name of fellahs, in a 
condition little better than that of slaves, cultivated the soil for their masters; and 4th, the 
Bedouin tribes, or wandering Arabs, children of the desert, who would never attach them- 
selves to the soil, but who wandered about, seeking pasturage for their numerous herds of 
cattle in the Oases, or fertile spots of the desert on both sides of the Nile. They could bring 
into the field twenty thousand horsemen, matchless in bravery, and in the skill with which 
their horses were managed, but destitute of discipline, and fit; only to harass an enemy, not to 
tight him. The third race was that of the Turks, who were introduced at the time of the con- 
quest of Egypt by the Sultans of Constantinople. They numbered about two hundred thousand, 
and were divided into Turks and Mamelukes. Most of the former were engaged in trades and 
handicrafts in the tov/ns. The latter, who were Circassian slaves purchased from among the 
handsomest boys of the Circassians, and carried to Egypt when young, and there trained to 
the practice of arms, were, with their chiefs and owners, the beys, the real masters and tyrants 
of the country. The entire body consisted of about twelve thousand horsemen, and each 
Mameluke had two fellahs to wait upon him. "They are all splendidly armed : in their girdles 
ai-e always to be seen a pair of pistols and a poniard ; from the saddle are suspended another 
pair of pistols and a hatchet ; on one side is a sabre, on the other a blunderbuss, and the 
Bervant on foot carries a carbine." 



4Tt MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

neutralize their means of resistance. Leaving three thousand sol- 
diers in garrison at Alexandria, he set out on the 6th of July for 
Cairo' at the head of thirty thousand men. After some 

XXXVIII. . 

BATTLE OF skimiishiug on the route with the Mamelukes, on the 
THE 21st of the month he arrived opposite Cairo, on the west 

p\RAM . g.^^ ^^ ^-^^ Nile, where Mourad Bey had formed an in- 
trenched camp, defended by twenty thousand men, while on the 
plain, between the camp and the pyramids, were drawn up nearly 
ten thousand Mameluke horsemen. Napoleon arranged his army 
in five divisions, each in the form of a square, with the artillery 
at the angles, and the baggage in the centre ; but scarcely had he 
made his dispositions, when eight thousand of the Mameluke horse- 
men, in one body, admirably mounted and magnificently dressed, 
and rending the air with their cries, advanced at full gallop upon the 
squares of infantry. Falling upon the foremost division, they were 
met by a terrible fire of grape and musketry, which drove them from 
the front round the sides of the column. Furious at the unexpected 
resistance, they dashed their horses against the rampart of bayonets, 
and threw their pistols at the heads of the grenadiers, but all in 
vain, — the tide was rolled back in confusion, and the survivors fled 
towards the camp, which was quickly stormed, its artillery, stores, 
and baggage were taken, and the " Battle of the Pyramids" was soon 
at an end. The victors lost scarcely a hundred ^ men in the action, 
while a great portion of the defenders of the camp perished in the 
Nile ; and, of the splendid array of Mameluke horsemen that had so 
gallantly borne down upon the French columns, not more than two 
thousand five hundred escaped with Mourad Bey into Upper Egypt. 
57. A few days after the battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon expe- 
XXXIX i^ienced a severe reverse by the destruction of his fleet 

BATTLE OF whlch hc liad left moored in the Bay of Aboukir near 

THE NILE. Alexandria. On the morning of the 1st of August the 
British fleet, under the command of Admiral Nelson, appeared off 

1. Cairo (ki'-ro) the modern capital of Egypt, and the second city of the Mohammedan 
world, is near the eastern bank of the Nile, about twelve miles above the apex of its delta, 
and one hundred and twelve miles south-east from Alexandria. Population variously estimated 
at from two hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand. Cairo is supposed to have been 
founded about the year 970, by an Arab general of the first Fatimate caliph. The neighbor- 
hood of Cairo abounds with places and objects possessing great interest, among which are 
the pyramids, and the remains of the city of Heliopolis, the On of the scriptures. (Map 
No. XII.) 

a. "Scarcely a hundred killed and wouuded."~Thiers. "The victors hardly lost two hun- 
dred men in the action." — Alison. 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEEN"TH CENTURY. 471 

the harbor, and on the afternoon of the same day the attack was 
commenced, several of the British ships penetrating between the 
French fleet and the shore, so as to place their enemies between two 
fires. The action that followed was terrific. The darkness of night 
was illumined by the incessant discharge of more than two thousand 
cannon ; and during the height of the contest the French ship 
L' Orient, of one hundred and twenty guns, having been for some 
time on fire, blew up with a tremendous explosion, by which every 
ship in both fleets was shaken to its centre. The result of this fa- 
mous " Battle of the Nile" was the destruction of the French naval 
power in the Mediterranean, the shutting up of the French army in 
Egypt, cut off from its resources, with scarcely the hope of return, 
the dispelling of Napoleon's dreams of Oriental conquest, and the 
revival of the coalition in Europe against the French republic. 
Turkey declared war ; Russia sent a fleet into the Mediterranean ; 
the king of Naples took up arms ; and the emperor of Austria, yield- 
ing to the solicitations of England, recommenced hostilities. 

58. Notwithstanding the loss of his fleet, and the storm that was 
arising in Europe, Napoleon showed no design of abandoning his 
conquests. With remarkable energy he established mills, foundries, 
and manufactories of gunpowder throughout Egypt, and soon put the 
country in an admirable state of defence. Upper Egypt was con- 
quered by a division under Desaix, who penetrated beyond the ruins 
of Thebes ; and finally, in the early part of February, rngg] 
1799, Napoleon, leaving sixteen thousand men as a re- xl. syrian 
serve in Egypt, set out at the head of only fourteen thou- ^^^'-^"'o^- 
sand men for the conquest of Syria, where the principal army of the 
Sultan was assembling. On the 6th of March, Jaffa, the Joppa of 
antiquity, the first considerable town of Palestine, was carried by 
storm, and four thousand of the garrison who had capitulated were 
mercilessly put to death — an eternal and inefi'aceable blot on the 
memory of Napoleon. 

59. On the 16th of March the French army made its appearance be- 
fore Acre, where the Pacha of Syria had shut himself up 

with all his treasures, determined to make the most des- \^l' .^""^^ 

Or ALKK. 

perate resistance. He was aided in the defence of the 
place by an English ofl&cer, Sir Sidney Smith, who commanded a 
small squadron on the coast. Foiled in every attempt to take the 
place by storm, Napoleon was finally compelled to order a retreat, 
after a siege of more than two months, having in the meantime, with 



A7% MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

only six thousand of his veterans, defeated an army of thirty thou- 
sand Oriental militia in the battle of Mount Tabor. ^ On the morn- 
ing of that battle Kleber had kft Nazareth^ to make an attack on 
the Turkish camp near the Jordan, but he met the advancing hosts 
in the plain in the vicinity of Mount Tabor. Throwing his little 
army into squares, with the artillery at the angles, he bravely main- 
tained the unequal combat for six hours, when Napoleon, 

X-Lll. BATTLE 

OF MOUNT arriving on the heights which overlooked the field of bat- 
TABOR. ||g^ ^^^ distinguishing his men by the steady flaming 
spots amid the moving throng by which they were surrounded, an- 
nounced, by the discharge of a twelve pounder, that succor was at 
hand. The arrival of fresh troops soon converted the battle into a 
complete rout ; the Turkish camp, with all its baggage and ammuni- 
tion, fell into the hands of the conquerors, and the army which the 
country people called " innumerable as the sands of the sea or the 
stars of heaven" was driven beyond the Jordan and dispersed, never 
again to return. 

60. Napoleon reached Egypt on the 1st of June, having lost more 
than three thousand men in his Syrian expedition ; but scarcely had 
he restored quiet to that country, when, on the 11th of July, a body 
of nine thousand Turks, admirably equipped, and having a numerous 
pack of artillery, landed at Aboukir Bay, having been transported 

^j^jjj thither by the squadron of Sir Sidney Smith. Napoleon 
BATTLE OF immediately left Cairo with all the forces which he could 
ABouKiE. command, and although he found the Turks at Aboukir 
strongly intrenched, he did not hesitate to attack them with inferior 
forces. The result was the total annihilation of the Turkish army, — 
five thousand being drowned in the Bay of Aboukir, two thousand 
killed in battle, and two thousand taken prisoners. 

61. By some papers which fell into his hands. Napoleon was now, 
for the first time, informed of the state of aff"airs in Europe. Early 
in the season the allies had collected a force of two hundred and fifty 
thousand men between the German ocean and the Adriatic, as a bar- 
rier against French ambition ; and fifty thousand Russians, under the 
veteran Suwarrow, were on the march to swell their numbers. To 
this vast force the French could oppose, along their eastern frontiers, 

1. Mount Tabor is Iwenly-five miles south-east from Acre, and fifty-three north-east from Je- 
rusalem. It is the mountain on which occurred the transfiguration of Christ. — Matthew, xvii. 
2, and Mark, ix. 2. (Map No. VI.) 

2. JN'azarcth, a small town of Palestine, celebrated as having been the early residence of the 
founder of Christianity, is seventy miles north-east from Jerusalem. (Map No. VI.) 



Chap. V.] EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 473 

and scattered over Italy, an army of only one hundred and seventy 
thousand. In Italy the united Kussians and Austrians gradually 
gamed ground until the French lost all their posts in that country 
except Genoa : many desperate battles were fought in Switzerland, 
but victory generally followed the allied powers, while, in Germany, 
the French were forced back upon the Rhine : Corfu had been con- 
quered by the Russians and English, and Malta was closely block- 
aded. 

62. When Napoleon was informed of these reverses of the French 
arms, his decision was immediately made, and leaving Kleber in com- 
mand of the army of Egypt, he secretly embarked for France. After 
a protracted voyage, in which he was in constant fear of being cap- 
tured by British cruisers, he landed at Frejus^ on the 9th of Octo- 
ber, and on the 18th found himself once more in Paris. The most 
enthusiastic joy pervaded the whole country on account of his return. 
The eyes, the wishes, and the hopes of the people, who were dissatis- 
fied v/ith the existing state of things, were all turned on him : men 
of all professions paid their court to him, as one in whose hands 
were, alread}^, the destinies of their country : the Directory alone 
distrusted and feared him. 

63. Napoleon, perceiving that the French people had grown weary 
of the Directory, and relying on the support of the army, 
concerted, with a few leading spirits, the overthrow of overthrow 
the government. As preliminary measures, the Council of the 

of the Ancients was induced to appoint him commander 
of the National Guard and of all the military in Paris, and to de- 
cree the removal of the entire Legislative body to St. Cloud,'' under 
his protection ; but the Council of Five Hundred, alarmed by ru- 
mors of the approaching dictatorship, raised so furious an opposition 
against him, that Napoleon was in imminent danger. As the only 
resource left him, he appealed to his comrades in arms, and on the 
9th of November, ] 799, a body of grenadiers entering the Legisla- 
tive hall by his orders, cleared it of its members; and thus military 

1. Frejus is a town of south-eastern Franco, in a spacious plain, one mile from the Mediter- 
ranean, and forty-five miles north-east from Toulon. Napoleon landed at St. Raphael, a small 
fishing vilkige about a mile and a-half from Frejus. Fre:jus was a place of importance in the 
lime of Julius Cajsar, who gave it his own name. {Map No. Xlil.) 

2. St. Cloud is a delightful village six miles west from Paris, containing a royal castle and 
magnificent garden, which were much embellished by Napoleon. Napoleon chose St. Cloud 
for his residence ; hence the expression cabinet of St. Clotid. Under the former government 
the phrase was, cabinet of Versailles^ or cabinet of the Tuileries. 



474 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

force was left triumphant in the place of the constitution and the 
^T^ .r.o^ laws. A new constitution was soon formed, by which 
LEON FIRST thc executivc power was intrusted to three consuls, of 
CONSUL. i^Y^om Napoleon was the chief The " First consul," as 
Napoleon was styled, was in everything but in name a monarch. Not 
only in Paris, but throughout all France, the feeling was in favor of 
the new government ; for the people, weary of anarchy, rejoiced at 
the prospect of repose under the strong arm of power, and were as 
unanimous to terminate the Revolution as, in 1789, they had been 
to commence it. The Revolution had passed through all its changes ; 
— monarchical, republican, and democratic ; it closed with the mili- 
tary character ; while the liberty which it strove to establish was im- 
molated by one of its own favorite heroes, on the altar of personal 
ambition 



Chap. VI.l NINETEENTH CENTURY. 475 



CHAPTEEVI. 

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
SECTION I. 

THE WARS OF NAPOLEON. 

ANALYSIS. [Events of the year 1800.] L Napoleon's proposals for peace. Rejected 
by the British government. — 2. Military force of Great Britain and Austria. Situation of France. 
Effect of Napoleon's government — 3. Disposition of the French forces. — 4. Successes of Moreau. 
[Engen. Moeskirch.] Massena is shut up in Genoa. Napoleon passes over the Great -St, 
Bernard. [Great St. Bernard.] — 5. Surprise of the Austrians. Napoleon's progress. Victory 
of Marengo. [Marengo.] — G. Efforts at negotiation. Majta surrenders to the British. — 7. Oper- 
ations of the French and Austrians in Bavaria. [Hohenlinden.] Passage of the Splugen by 
Macdonald. [Splugen.] Armistice. Peace of Luneville. [Luneville.] — 8. Maritime confed- 
eracy against England. lis effect. Previous orders of the Danish and Russian governments. 

9. [Events of 1801.] England sends a powerful fleet to the Baltic. Battle of Copenhagen. 
— 10. The Russian emperor Paul is strangled, and succeeded by Alexander. Dissolution of the 
League of the North. — 11. The French army in Egypt. Capitulation. General peace. [Amiens.] 

12. [Events of 1802, the year of Peace.] Internal Affairs of France. Napoleon made 
consul for life.— 13. Conduct of Napoleon in his relations with foreign States. Holland— the 
Italian republics — the Swiss cantons. Attempt to recover St. Domingo. [Historical account 
of St. Domingo.] — 14, Circumstances leading to a renewal, of the war in 1803. Hostile 
acts of England and France. 

15. First military operations of the French, in the year 1803, [Hanover.] Preparations for 
the invasion of England. — 16. Rebellion in Ireland. Conspiracy against Napoleon early in 
1804. The affair of the Duke D'Enghien, [Baden.]— 17. Hostile acts of England against Spain- 
The latter joins France. — 18, Napoleon, emperor. May, 1804 — crowned by the pope — anointed 
sovereign of Italy, May, 1805. 

19. New coalition against France. Prussia remains neutral. Beginning of the war by Aus- 
tria. — 20. The French forces. Napoleon victorious at Ulm. [Ulm.] English naval victory of 
Trafalgar. [Trafalgar.] Additional victories of Napoleon, and treaty of Presburg, Dec. 1805. 
[Austerlitz.] 

[1800.] 21. Conquests of the English. [Mahrattas. Buenos Ayres.] Napoleon rapidly ex- 
tends his supremacy over the continent. The affairs of Naples, Holland, and Germany.— 22. 
Circumstances which led Prussia to join the coalition against Napoleon. — 23. Napoleon's victo- 
ries over the Prussians. He enters Berlin. [Jena. Auerstadt.]— 24. The Berlin decrees. Na- 
poleon in Poland. Battle of Pultusk. Battle of Eylau, Feb. 1807. Fall of Dantzic. [Eylau. 
Dantzic.]— 25. Battle of Friedland. [Friedland. Niemen.] The treaty of Tilsit, Losses suf- 
fered by Prussia. [Tilsit, Westphalia,]— 26. Circumstances that led to the bombardment of 
Copenhagen, by the English fleet, Denmark joins France, Portuguese affairs. Th-e French 
in Lisbon. [Rio Janeiro. Brazil.]— 27. The designs of Napoleon against the Peninsular mon- 
archs. Affairs of Spain, 1808, Godoy— abdication of the Spanish monarch, and his son Ferdi- 
nand, Joseph Bonaparte becomes king of Spain, and Murat king of Naples.— 28. Resistance 
of the Spaniards and beginning of the Peninsular war, — 29. Successes of the Spaniards at 
Cadiz, Valencia, Saragossa, and Baylen. [Baylen. Ebro.]— 30. War in Portugal, and 
evacuation of that country by the French forces. [Oporto. Vimiera. Cintra.]— 31. Napoleon 
takes the field in person, and the British are rapidly driven from Spain. [Reynosa. Burgos. 
Tudela. Coruuna.] 



476 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet IL 

[1809.] 32. Austria suddenly renews the war. Victories of Napoleon, who enters Vienna in 
May; and peace with Austria in October. [Eckmuhl. Aspern. Wagram.]— 33. War with 
the Tyrolese. British expedition to Holland. Continuance of the war in the Spanish penin- 
sula. Difficulties between Napoleon and the pope.— 34. Napoleon's divorce from Josephine 
and marriage with Maria Louisa of Austria, 1810, Eflects of this marriage upon Napoleon's 
future prospects. His conduct towards Holland. Sweden. His power in the central parts of 
Europe. Jealousy of the Russian emperor.— 35. Continuance of the war in the Spanish penin- 
Bula. Wellington and Massena. [Ciudad Rodrigo. Busaco. Torres Vedras.]— 30. The pe- 
ninsula war during the year 1811. [Badajoz. Albuera.] 

37. Events of the peninsular war from the beginning of 1812 to the retreat of the French 
across the Pyrenees. [Salamanca. Vittoria ] 

38. Napoli^on's Russian Campaign, 1812. Events that led to the opening of a war with 
Russia. The opposing nations iu this war.— 39. The "C rand Army" of Napoleon. The op- 
posing Russian force.— 40. Napoleon crosses the Niemen, June 1812. Relreat of the Russians. 
Early disasters of the French army. [Wilna.]— 41. Onward march of the army. Battle of 
Smolensko. Entrance of the deserted city.— 42. Napoleon pursues the retreating Russians, 
who make a stand at Borodino. [Borodino.] The evening before the battle. — 43. Battle of 
Borodino, Sept. 7th.— 44. Continued retreat of the Russians, who abandon Moscow. The city, 
on the entrance of the French. The burning of Moscow. Napoleon begins a retreat Oct. 19th. 
—45. The horrors of the retreat.- 4ti. Napoleon at Smolensko. He renews the retreat Nov. 
14th. Battles of Krasnoi, and passage of the Beresina. [Krasnoi. Beresina.] Marshal Ney. 
Napoleon abandons the army, and reaches Paris, Dec. 18lh. His losses in the Russian campaign. 

47. War between England and the United States of America. Mexico. The war iu the 
Indian seas. 

[1813.] 48. Napoleon's preparations for renewing the war. Prussia, Sweden, and Austria. 
Battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. Armistice, and congress of Prague. [Bautzen.]— 49. War re- 
newed Aug. 16ih. Austria joins the allies. Battles. [Culm. Gross-Beren. Katsbach. Den- 
newitz.] BattlesofLeipsic, and retreat of the French. Losses of the French. Revolts. Wellington. 

[1814.] 50. General invasion of France. Bernadotte and Murat. Energy and talents of Na- 
poleon. The allies inarch upon Paris, which capitulates. Deposition, and abdication, of Napo- 
leon. Treaty between him and the allies. [Elba.] Louis XVIII. Restricted limits of France. 

[1815.] 51. Congress of Vienna, and Napoleon's return from Elba. Marshal Ney. All France 
submits to Napoleon. — 52. Napoleon in vain attempts negotiations. Forces of the allies ; of 
Napoleon. — 53. Napoleon's policy, and movements. Battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras, Wavre, 
and Waterloo. Second capitulation of Paris. Napoleon's abdication— attempted escape 
to America— exile— and death. 54. First objects of the allies. Return of Louis XVIII. 
Execution of Ney, and Labedoy6re. Fate of Murat.— 55. Second treaty of Paris. Its terms. 
Restoration of the pillaged treasures of art. 

1. As soon as Napoleon was seated on the consular throne of 

France he addressed to the British government an able 

I. EVENTS OF communication, making general proposals of peace. To 

THE YEAR ^ijjg ^ fimi aud dignified reply was given, ascribing the 

evils which afflicted Europe to French aggression and 
French ambition, and declining to enter into a general pacification 
until France should present, in her internal condition and foreign 
policy, firmer pledges than she had yet given, of stability in her own 
government, and security to others. The answer of the British gov- 
ernment forms the beginning of the second period of the war — that 
in which it was waged with Napoleon himself, the skilful director of 
all the energies of the French nation. 

2. War being resolved on, the most active measures were taken 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 477 

on both sides to prosecute it with vigor. The land forces, equipped 
militia, and seamen of Great Britain, amounted to three hundred 
and seventy thousand men, and Austria furnished two hundred thou- 
sand. France seemed poorly prepared to meet the coming storm. 
Her armies had just been defeated in Germany and Italy ; her 
treasury was empty, and her government had lost all credit ; the af- 
filiated Swiss and Dutch republics were discontented ; and the French 
people were dissatisfied and disunited. But the establishment of a 
firm and powerful government soon arrested these disorders ; the 
finances were established on a solid basis ; the Yendean war was 
amicably terminated ; Russia was detached from the British alli- 
ance ; many of the banished nobility were recalled ; confidence, en- 
ergy, and hope, revived ; and the prospects of France rapidly bright- 
ened under the auspices of Napoleon. 

3. At the opening of the campaign the French forces were dis- 
posed in the following manner. The army of Germany, one hundred 
and twent3^-eiglit thousand strong, under the command of Moreau, 
was posted on the northern confines of Switzerland and north along 
the west bank of the Khine : the army of Italy, thirty-six thousand 
strong, under the command of Massena, occupied the crest of the 
Alps in the neighborhood of Genoa ; while an army of reserve, of 
fifty thousand men, of whom twenty thousand were veteran troops, 
awaited the orders of the first consul, ready to fly to tlie aid of either 
Moreau or Massena. 

4. Moreau, victorious at Engen and Moeskirch,' drove the Aus- 
trians back from the Rhine, and, penetrating to Munich, laid Bavaria 
under contribution. Massena, after the most vigorous efforts against 
a greatly superior force, was shut up in Genoa with a part of his 
army, and finally compelled to capitulate. Napoleon, on hearing the 
reverses of Massena, resolved to cross the Swiss Alps and fall upon 
Piedmont. Taking the route by the Great St. Bernard,'^ on the 1 7th 

1. Eiin-en and Moeshirch are in the south-eastern part of Baden, near the northern boundary 
of Switzerland. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Orcat St. Bernard is the name giA'en to a famous pass of the Alps, leading over tlie 
mountains from the Swiss town of Martigny to the Italian town of Aosta. In its highest part 
it rises to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet, being almost impassable in winler, 
and very dangerous in spring, from the avalanches. Near the summit of the pass is the 
famous hospital founded in 962 by Bernard de Menthon, and occupied by brethren of the order 
of St. Augustine, whose especial duty it is to assist and relieve travellers crossing the mountains. 
In the midst of the tempests and snow storms, the monks, accompanied by dogs of extraordi- 
nary size and sagacity, set out for the purpose of tracking those who have lost their way. If 
they find the body of a traveller who has perished, they carry it into the vault of the dead, 
where it remains lying on a table until another victim is brought to occupy the place. It is 



478 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of May his army began the ascent of the mountain. The artillery 
wagons were taken to pieces, and put on the backs of mules, while 
a hundred large pines, each hollowed out to receive a piece of artil- 
lery, were drawn up the mountain by the soldiers. To encourage the 
men, the music of each regiment played at its head ; and where the 
ascent was most difl&cult the charge was sounded. 

5. Great was the surprise of the Austrians at beholding this large 
army descending into the Italian plains. Before the end of the 
month Napoleon was at Turin, and on the 2d of June, after little 
opposition, he made his triumphant entry into Milan. On the 14th 
he was attacked by the Austrian general Melas, at the head of greatly 
superior forces, on the plains of Marengo.^ Here, after twelve hours 
of incessant fighting, victory was decided in favor of the French by 
the stubborn resistance of Desaix, and the happy charge of the gal- 
lant Kellerman. General Desaix, who had just arrived from Egypt, 
fell on the field of battle. The result of the victory gave Napoleon 
the entire command of Italy, and induced the Austrians to pro- 
pose a suspension of arms, which, in anticipation of a treat}^, was 
agreed to. 

6. The efforts at negotiation were unsuccessful, as no satisfactory 
arrangements could be made between England and France, and in the 
latter part of November the armistice was terminated, and hostili- 
ties recommenced. In the meantime Malta, which, during more 
than two years, had been closely blockaded by the British forces, was 
compelled to surrender, and was permanently annexed to the British 
dominions. 

7. On the renewal of the war, the Austrian army, eighty thousand 
strong, under the Archduke John, and the French army, somewhat 
less in number, under Moreau, were facing each other on the eastern 
confines of Bavaria. The Austrians advanced, and on the 3d of De- 
then set up against the wall, among the other dead bodies, which, on account of the cold, decny 
60 slowly that they are often recognized by their friends after the lapse of years. It is impos- 
sible to bury the dead, as there is nothing about the hospital but naked rocks. Not a tree or 
bush is to be seen, but everlasting winter reigns in this dreary abode, the highest inhabited 
place in Europe. 

When the army of Napoleon crossed the St. Bernard, every soldier received from the monks 
a large ration of bread and cheese, and a draught of wine at the gate of the hospital : a season- 
able supply which exhausted the stores of the establishment, but was fully repaid by the First 
Consul before the close of the campaign. 

The lAttle St. Bernard., over which Hannibal crossed, is farther west, separating Piedmont 
from Savoy. The undertaking of the Carthaginian was far more difficult than that of Napoleon. 
(Map No. XIV.) 

1. Marengo is a small village of Northern Italy, in an extensive plain, forty-three miles south- 
west from Milan. {Map No. XII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 479 

cember brought on the famous battle of Hohenlmden,* in which they 
were completely overthrown, and driven back with great slaughter. 
Moreau rapidly pursued the retreating enemy, and penetrated within 
sixty miles of Vienna, when, at the solicitation of the Austrian gen- 
eral, an armistice was agreed to on the 25th. In the meantime, in 
the very heart of winter, the French general Macdonald, at the head 
of fifteen thousand men, had crossed from Switzerland into the Italian 
Tyrol, by the famous pass of the Splugen,''' more difl&cult than that 
of St. Bernard. The French forces in Italy now numbered more 
than a hundred thousand men, and the speedy expulsion of the Aus- 
trians was anticipated, when an armistice, soon followed by the peace 
of Luneville,^ put an end to the contest with Austria.* 

8. In the meantime Napoleon, with consummate policy, was suc- 
cessfully planning a union of the Northern powers against England ; 
and on the 16th of December, 1800, a maritime confederacy was 
signed by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, and soon after by Prussia, 
as an acceding party. This league, aimed principally against Eng- 
land, was designed to protect the commerce of the Northern powers, 
on principles similar to the armed neutrality of 1780; but its effect 
would have been, if fully carried out, to deprive England, in great 
part, of her naval superiority. The Danish government had previ- 
ously ordered her armed vessels to resist the search of British cruis- 
ers ; and the Russian emperor had issued an embargo on all the 
British ships in his harbors. 

9. England, determined to anticipate her enemies, despatched, as 
soon as possible, a powerful fleet to the Baltic, under the command of 
Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker. Passing through the Sound under 
the fire of the Danish batteries, on the 30th of March the fleet came 

1. Hohenlinden is a village of Bavaria, nineteen miles east from Munich. {Map No. XV1[.) 
Campbell's noble ode, beginning, 

" On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow," 
has rendered the name, at least, of this battle, familiar to almost every school-boy. 

2. The Pass of the Splugen leads over the Alps from the Grisons to the Italian Tyrol, into 
the valley of the Lake of Como. It was only after the most incredible efforts that Macdonald 
succeeded in passing his army over the mountain ; and more than a hundred soldiers, and as 
many horses and mules, were swallowed up in its abysses, and never more heard of. Since 
]823 there has been a road over the Splugen passable for wheel carriages. It was built by 
Austria, at great expense. {Map No. XIV.) 

3. iMneville^ in the former province of Lorraine, is on the road from Paris to Strasbourg, 
sixteen miles south-east from Nancy. By the treaty concluded here in ISOl, and which Francis 
was obliged to give his assent to, "not only as emperor of Austria, but in the name of the 
German empire," Belgium and all the lefU bank of the Rhine were again formally ceded to 
France, and Lombardy was erected into an independent State. {Maps No. XIII. and XVII.) 

a. Feb. 9th, 1801, 



480 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

to anchor opposite the harbor of Copenhagen, which was protected 

by an imposing array of forts, men-of-war, fire-ships, and 

floating; batteries. On the 2d of April Nelson brought 
OF 1801. , . , ° . ., , , , . -.^ 

his ships into the harbor, where, m a space not exceeding 

a mile and a half in extent, they were received by a tremendous fire 

from more than two thousand cannon. The English replied with 

equal spirit, and after four hours of incessant cannonade the whole 

front line of Danish vessels and floating batteries was silenced, with 

a loss to the Danes, of more than six thousand men. The English 

loss was twelve hundred. Of this battle. Nelson said, " I have been 

in one hmidred and five engagements, but that of Copenhagen was 

the most terrible of them all." 

1 0. While Nelson was preparing to follow up his success by at- 
tacking the Russian fleet in the Baltic, news reached him of an event 
at St. Petersburgh which changed the whole current of Northern 
policy. A conspiracy of Russian noblemen was formed against the 
Emperor Paul, who was strangled in his chamber on the night of the 
24th of March. His son and successor Alexander at once resolved 
to abandon the confederacy, and to cultivate the friendship of Great 
Britain. Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia followed his example; and 
thus was dissolved, in less than six months after it had been formed, 
the League of the North, — the most formidable confederacy ever 
arrayed against the maritime power of England. 

11. While these events were transpiring in Europe, the army 
which Napoleon had left in Egypt, under the command of Kleber, 
after losing its leader by the hands of an obscure assassin, was 
doomed to yield to an English force sent out under Sir Ralph Aber- 
crombie, who fell at the head of his victorious columns on the plains 
of Alexandria.*^ By the terms of capitulation, the French troopsj 
to the number of twenty-four thousand, were conveyed to France 
with their arms, baggage, and artillery. As Malta had previously 
surrendered to the British, there was now little left to contend for 
between France and England. To the great joy of both nations 
preliminaries of peace were signed at London on the 1st of October, 
and on the 27th of March, 1802, tranquillity was restored through- 
out Europe by the definitive treaty of Amiens.' 

12. Napoleon now directed all his energies to the reconstruction 

1. Amiens. (See p. 2*9.) The definitive treaty of Amiens was concluded March 27lh, 1802, 
between Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic, (Republic of Holland.) 
a. March 2l8t, 1801. 



Chap VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 481 

of society in France, the general improvement of the country, and 
the consolidation of the power he had acquired. By a 

, , -, , , . ni. EVENTS 

general amnesty one hundred thousand emigrants were of 1802, 
enabled to return : the Roman Catholic religion was re- '^^^e ykau 

OK PKAOF 

stored, to the discontent of the Parisians, but to the great 
joy of the rural population : a system of public instruction was es- 
tablished under the auspices of the government : to bring back that 
gradation of ranks in society that the Revolution had overthrown, 
the Legion of Honor was instituted, an order of nobility founded on 
personal merit : great public works were set on foot throughout 
France : the collection of the heterogeneous laws of the Monarchy 
and the Republic into one consistent whole, under the title of the 
Code Napoleon, was commenced ; an undertaking which has deserved- 
ly covered the name of Napoleon with glory, and survived all the 
other achievements of his genius ; and finally, the French nation, as 
a permanent pledge of their confidence, by an almost unanimous vote, 
conferred upon their favorite and idol the title and authority of con- 
sul for life. 

13. In his relations with foreign States the conduct of Napoleon 
was less honorable. He arbitrarily established a government in 
Holland, entirely subservient to his will ; and he moulded the 
northern Italian republics at his pleasure : he interfered in the dis- 
sensions of the Swiss cantons to establish a government in harmony 
with the monarchical institutions which he was introducing in Paris ; 
and when the Swiss resisted, he sent Ney at the head of twenty thou- 
sand men to enforce obedience. England remonstrated in vain, and 
the Swiss, in despair, submitted to the yoke imposed upon them. 
Napoleon was less successful in an attempt to recover the island of 
St. Domingo,' which had revolted from French authority. Forces 

J. St. Domhigo, or Hayti, culled by Columbus Ilispaniola, (Little Spain.,) is a large island 
of the West Indies, about fifty miles east of Cuba. It was first colonized by tlie Spaniards, 
by whose cruelties the aboriginal inhabitunis were soon almost wholly destroyed. Their jilacQ 
was at first supplied by Indians forcibly carried off from the Bahamas, and, at a later period, 
by the importation of vast numbers of negroes from Africa. About the middle of the six- 
teenth century the French obtained fooling on its western coasts, and in 1691 Spain ceded to 
France half the island, and at subsequent periods tiie possessions of the latter v.'ere still farther 
augmented. From 1776 to 178!) the French colony was at the height of its prosperity, but in 
1791 the negroes, excited by news of the opening revolution in France, broke out in insurrec- 
tion, and in two months upwards of two thousand wJiites perished, and large districts of fertile 
plantations were devastated. While the war vi'as raging, commissioners, sent from France, 
taking part with the negroes against the planters, proclaimed the freedom of all the blacks who 
should enrol tliemselves under tlie republican standard : a measure equivalent to the instant 
abolition of slavery throughout the island. The English government, apprehensive of danger 
to its West India possessions from the establishment of so great a revolutionary outporft at 

31 



482 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

to the number of thirty-five thousand men were sent out to reduce 
the island, but nearly all perished, victims of fatigue, disease, and the 
perfidy of their own government. 

14. It soon became evident that the peace of Amiens could not 
be permanent. The encroachments of France upon the feebler Eu- 
ropean powers, the armed occupation of Holland, the great accumu- 
lation of troops on the shores of the British Channel, and the evident 
designs of Napoleon upon Egypt, excited the jealousy of England ; 
and the latter refused to evacuate Malta, Alexandria, and the Cape 
of Good Hope, in accordance with the late treaty stipulations, until sat- 

IV RENEWAL i^factory explanations should be given by the French gov- 
OF THF. ernment. Bitter recriminations followed on both sides, 

WAR, 1803. ^^^ ^^ ^^^ month of May, 1803, the cabinet of London 
issued letters of marque, and an embargo on all French vessels in 
British ports. Napoleon retaliated by ordering the arrest of all the 
English then in France between the ages of eighteen and sixty years. 

15. The first military operations of the French were rapid and 
successful. The electorate of Hanover,^ a dependency of England, 



the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, and hoping to take advantage of the confusion prevailing 
in the island, attempted its reduction, but after an enormous loss of men Anally evacuated it in 
1793. No sooner was the island delivered from external enemies than a frightful civil war en- 
sued between tlie mulattoes and negroes, but the former were overcome, and in December 
1800 Toussaint LouverUire, the able leader of the blacks, was sole master of the P'rench part 
of the island. Napoleon at first confirmed him in his command as general-in-chief, but finding 
that he aimed at independent authority, in the winter of 1801 he sent out a large force to reduce 
llu; island to submission. During a truce Toussaint was surprised and carried to France, where 
lie died in April 1803. Hostilities were renewed : in November, 1803, the French, driven into 
a corner of the island, capitulated to an English squadron ; and in January, 1804, the Haytien 
chiefs, in the name of Ibe people, renounced all dependence on France. Numerous civil wars 
and revolutions long continued to distract the island. In 1821 that part of the island originally 
settled by the Spaniards voluntarily placed itself under the Haytien government, which still 
maintains its independence. 

In 1791 St. Domingo was in a most flourishing condition, but its commerce and industry were 
seriously interrupted by the bloody wars and revolutions which succeeded. Moreover, it was 
not to be expected that half-civilized negroes, suddenly loosed from bondage, under a burning 
sun, and without the wants or desires of Europeans, shoidd exhibit the vigor and industry of 
the latter. The Haytien government has found it necessary to adopt a "Rural Code," which 
makes labor compulsory 021 the poorer classes, who in return share a portion of the produce of 
the lands of their masters. Nominally free, the blacks remain really ,i^„sluved. But the island 
is beginning to assume a more thriving appearance ; the manners a«S morals of the people, 
although still b.id, are improving ; and something has been done for public instruction. What 
are to be the final results of this experiment of negro emancipation, time only can determine. 

1. Hanover is a large kingdom of north-western Germany, bounded north by the German 
Ocean and the Elbe, east by Prussia aud Brunswick, south by Hesse Cassel and the Prussian 
department of the Lower Rhine, and west by Holland. A portion of western Hanover is 
almost divided from the rest by the grand-duchy of Oldenburg. (See Map No. XVII.) Thia 
kingdom is formed out of the duchies formerly possessed by several families of the junior 
branch of the house of Brunwsick. Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, married Sophia, a 



OflAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 483 

was quickly conquered, and in utter disregard of neutral rights the 
whole of the north of Germany was at once occupied by French 
troops, while, simultaneously, an army was sent into southern Italy, 
to take possession of the Neapolitan territories. But these move- 
ments were insignificant when compared with Napoleon's gigantic 
preparations ostensibly for the invasion of England. Forts and bat- 
teries were constructed on every headland and accessible point of the 
Channel : the number of vessels and small craft assembled along the 
coast was immense ; and the fleets of France, Holland, and Spain, 
were to aid in the enterprise. England made the most vigorous 
preparations for repelling the anticipated invasion, which, however, 
was not attempted, and perhaps never seriously intended. 

16. The year of the renewal of the war was farther distinguished 
by an unhappy attempt at rebellion in Ireland, in 

which the leaders, Russell and Emmett, were seized, 
brought to trial, and executed. Early in the following year, 1804, a 
conspiracy against the power of Napoleon was detected, in which the 
generals Moreau and Pichegru, and the royalist leader Georges, were 
implicated. Moreau was allowed to leave the country, Pichegru 
was found strangled in prison, and Georges was executed. Napoleon, 
either believing, or affecting to believe, that the young Duke D'Enghien, 
a Bourbon prince then living in the neutral territor}^ of Baden, ^ was 
concerned in this plot, caused him to be seized and hurried to Vin- 
cennes, where, after a mock trial, he was shot by the sentence of a 
court martial : — an act which has fixed an indelible stain on the 
memory of Napoleon, as not the slightest evidence of criminality was 
brought against the unhappy prince. 

1 7. Owing to the intimate connection that had been formed between 
the courts of Paris and Madrid, England sent out a fleet in the 
autumn of 1804, before any declaration of war had been made, to 
interrupt the homeward bound treasure frigates of Spain ; and these 
were captured,^ with valuable treasure amounting to more than two 

grand-daughter of James I. of England ; and George Louis, the issue of this marriage, became 
king of England, with the title of George I., in 1714; from which time till 1837, at the dea(h 
of William IV., both England and Hanover had the same sovereign. On the accession of a 
female to the throne of Great Britain, the Salic law conferred the crown of Hanover on anothei 
branch of the Hanoverian family. During the supremacy of Napoleon, Hanover constituted fi 
part of the kingdom of Westphalia, but was restored to its lawful sovereign in 1813. (J\Iap 
No. XVII.) 

1. The grand-duchy of Baden occupies the south-western angle of Germany, having Switzer- 
land on the south, and France and Rhenish Bavaria (the Palatinate) on the west. {Map No. 
XVII.) 

a. Oct. 4th, 1804. 



484 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

million pounds sterling. The British government was severely cen- 
sured for this hasty act. Spain now openly joined France, and de- 
clared war against England.^ 

18. On the 18th of May of this year Napoleon was created, by 
decree of the senate, " Emperor of the French;" and on the 2d of 
December, 1804, was solemnly crowned by the pope, who had been 
induced to come to Paris for that purpose. The principal powers 

of Europe, with the exception of Grreat Britain, recog- 
nized the new sovereign. On the 26th of May of the 
following year he was formally anointed sovereign of Northern Italy. 
The iron crown of Charlemagne, which had quietly reposed a thou- 
sand years, was brought forward to give interest to the ceremony, 
and Napoleon placed it on his own head, at the same pronouncing 
the words, '- Grod has given it me : beware of touching it." 

19. The continued usurpations charged upon Napoleon at length 
induced the Northern Powers to listen to the solicitations of England ; 
and in the summer of 1805 a new coalition, embracing Russia, Aus- 
tria, and Sweden, was formed against France. Prussia, tempted by 
the glittering prize of Hanover, which Napoleon held out to her, per- 
sisted in her neutrality, with an evident leaning towards the French 
interest. The Austrian emperor precipitately commenced the war 
by invading^ the neutral territory of Bavaria ; an act as unjustifiable 
as any of which he accused Napoleon. The latter seized the oppor- 
tunity of branding his enemies as aggressors in the contest, and de- 
clared himself the protector of the liberties of Europe. 

20. In the latter part of September, 1805, the French forces, in 
eight divisions, and numbering one hundred and eighty thousand men, 
were on the banks of the Rhine, preparing to carry the war into 
Austria. The advance of Napoleon was rapid, and everywhere the 
enemy were driven before him. On the 20th of October, Napoleon, 
having surrounded the Austrian general Mack at Ulm,^ compelled 
him to surrender his whole force of twenty thousand men. On the 
very next day, however, the English fleet, commanded by Admiral 
Nelson, gained a great naval victory off Cape Trafalgar," over the 

1 Ulm is an eastern frontier town of Wirtemberg, on the western bank of the Danube, sev- 
enty-six miles north-west from Munich. Formerly a free city, it was attached to Bavaria in 
]8()3, and in 1810 to AVirtemberg. {Map No. XVII. ) 

2. Cape Trafalgar is a promontory of the south-western coast of Spain, twenty-five miles 
north-west of the fortress of Gibraltar. In the great naval battle of Oct. 21st, 1805, the Eng- 
lish, under Nelson, having twenty-seven sail of the line and three frigates, were opposed by the 

a. Dec. 12th, 1304. b. Sept. 9lh, 180J. 



Chap. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 485 

combined fleets of France and Spain ; but it was dearly purchased 
by the death of the hero. On the 13th of November Napoleon en- 
tered Vienna, and on the 2d of December he gained the great battle 
of Austerlitz/ the most glorious of all his victories,^ which resulted 
in the total overthrow of the combined Russian and Austrian armies, 
and enabled the victor to dictate peace on his own terms.^ The em- 
peror of Russia, who was not a party to the treaty, withdrew his 
troops into his own territories : the king of Prussia received Hanover 
as a reward of his neutrality ; and Great Britain alone remained at 
open war with France. 

21. While the English now prosecuted the war with vigor on the 
ocean, humbled the Mahratta" powers in India, subdued the Dutch 
colony of the Cape, and took Buenos Ayres'' from the Spaniards, Na- 
poleon rapidly extended his supremacy over the continent 

vrr 1 i^n<^ 

of Europe. In February, 1806, he sent an army to take 
possession of Naples, because the king, instigated by his queen, an Aus- 
trian princess, had received an army of Russians and English into his 
capital. The king of Naples fled to Sicily, and Napoleon conferred 
the vacant crown upon his brother Joseph. Napoleon next placed 
his brother Louis on the throne of Holland : he erected various dis- 
tricts in Germany and Italy into dukedoms, which he bestowed on 
his principal marshals : while fourteen princes in the south and west 
of Germany were induced to form the Confederation^ of the Rhine, 
and place themselves under the protection of France. By this latter 
stroke of policy on the part of Napoleon, a population of sixteen 
millions was cut off from the Germanic dominion of Austria. 

22. In the negotiations which Napoleon was at this time carrying 
on with England, propositions were made for the restoration of Han- 
over to that power, although it had recently been given to Prussia. It 

French and Spanish fleet of thirty-three sail of the line and seven frigates. Nelson, who was 
mortally wounded in the action, lived only to be made aware of the destruction of the enemy's 
fleet. (Map No. XIII.) 

1. jJusterlitz (ows'-ter-litz) is a small town of Moravia, thirteen miles southwest of Brunn 
the capital. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. The Jilahrattas were an extensive Hindoo nation in the western part of southern Hindostan. 
The various tribes of which the nation consisted were first united into a monarchy about the 
middle of the seventeenth century. 

3. Buenos Jiyrcs (in Spanish bwa-noce-i-res,) is a large city of South America, capital of the 
republic of La Plata. In 1810 began the revolutionary movements that ended in the emanci- 
pation of Buenos Ayres and the States of La Plata from Spain. The declaration of indepen- 
dence was made on the 9lh of July, 1816. 

a. Loss of the allies thirty thousand, in killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. Loss of the 
French twelve thousand. 

b. Treaty of Presburg, Dec. 27th, 1805. c. July 12th. 



486 MODERN HISTORY. [Par? 1L 

was moreover suspected that Napoleon had offered to win the favor 
of Russia at the expense of his Prussian ally. These, and other 
causes, aroused the indignation of the Prussians ; and the Prussian 
monarch openly joined the coalition against Napoleon before his own 
arrangements were completed, or his allies could yield him any assist- 
ance. Both England and Russia had promised him their coopera- 
tion. 

23. With his usual promptitude Napoleon put his troops in motion, 
and on the 8th of October reached the advanced Prussian outposts. 
On the 14th he routed the Prussians with terrible slaughter in the 
battle of Jena,^ and on the same day Marshal Davoust gained the 
battle of Auerstadt,''' in which the Duke of Brunswick was mortally 
wounded. On these two fields the loss of the Prussians was nearly 
twenty thousand in killed and wounded, besides nearly as many 
prisoners. The total loss of the French was fourteen thousand. In 
a single day the strength of the Prussian monarchy was prostrated. 
Napoleon rapidly followed up his victories, and on the 25th his 
vanguard, under Marshal Davoust, entered Berlin, only a fortnight 
after the commencement of hostilities. 

24. Encouraged by his successes Napoleon issued a series of edicts 
from Berlin, declaring the British islands in a state of blockade, and 
excluding British manufactures from all the continental ports. He 
then pursued the Russians into Poland : on the SOfch of November his 

troops entered Warsaw without resistance ; but on the 
26th of December his advanced forces received a check 
in the severe battle of Pultusk. On the 8th of February, 1807, a 
sanguinary battle was fought at Eylau,^ in which each side lost 
twenty thousand men, and both claimed the victory. In some minor 
engagements the allies had the advantage, but these were more than 
counterbalanced by the siege and fall of the important fortress of 
Dantzic,* which had a garrison of seventeen thousand men, and was 
defended by nine hundred cannon. 

1. Jena is a town of central Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe Weimar, on the west bank 
of the river Salle, forty-three miles south-west from Leipsic. The battle was fought between 
the towns of Jena and Weimar. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Auerstadt {o\s'-ex-?X&dV) is a small village of Prussian Saxony, six miles west of Naumberg, 
and about twenty miles north of the battle-ground of Jena. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Eylau (1-low) is a village in Prussia proper, or East Prussia, twenty-eight miles south 
from Konigsberg. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Dantzic is an important commercial city, seaport, and fortress, of the province of West 
Prussia, on tlie western bank of the Vistula, about three miles from its mouth. Dantzic sur- 
rendered to the Frencli May 27th 1807. {Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 487 

25. At length, on the l4th of June, Napoleon fought the great 
and decisive battle of Friedland,^ and the broken remains of the 
Russian array fell back upon the Niemen.^ An armistice was now 
agreed to : on the 25th of June the emperors of France and Russia 
met for the first time, with great pomp and ceremony, on a raft in 
the middle of the Niemen, and on the 7tli of July signed the treaty 
of Tilsit.^ All sacrifices were made at the expense of the Prussian 
monarch, who received back only about one-half of his dominions. 
The elector of Saxony, the ally of France, was rewarded with that 
portion of the Prussian territory, which, prior to the first partition 
in 1772, formed part of the kingdom of Poland : this portion was 
now erected into the grand-duchy of Warsaw. Out of another por- 
tion was formed the kingdom of Westphalia,* which was bestovv^ed 
upon Jerome Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon ; and Russia agreed 
to aid the French emperor in his designs against British commerce. 

26. Soon after the treaty of Tilsit it became evident to England 
that Napoleon would leave no means untried to humble that power 
on the ocean, and it was believed that, with the connivance of Russia, 
he was making arrangements with Denmark and Portugal for the 
conversion of their fleets to his purposes. England, menaced with 
an attack from the combined navies of Europe, but resolving to an- 
ticipate the blow, sent a powerful squadron against Denmark, with 
an imperious demand for the instant surrender of the Danish fleet 
and naval stores, to be held as pledges until the conclusion of the 
war. A refusal to comply wdtli this summons was followed by a four 
days' bombardment of Copenhagen, and the final surrender of the 
fleet. Denmark, though deprived of her navy, resented the hostilit^r 
of England by throwing herself, without reserve, into the arms of 
France. The navy of Portugal was saved from falling into the 
power of France, by sailing, at the instigation of the British, to Rio 

1. Friedland (freed' land) is a town of East Prussia, on tbe western bank of the river Alle 
(al'-leh) twenty-eight miles south-east from Konigsberg, and eighteen north-east of Eylau. 
{Map No. XVII.) 

2. The river J\riemcn (Polish nyem' en) rises in the Prussian province of Grodno, and, passing 
through the north-eastern extremity of Prussia, enters a gulf of the Baltic by two channels 
twenty-two miles apart, and each about thirty miles below Tilsit. (Map No, XVII.) 

3. Tilsit is a town of East Prussia, on the southern bank of the Niemen, sixty miles north- 
east of Konigsberg. iJ\Iap No. XVII.) 

4. Westphalia is a name, 1st, originally given, in the Middle Ages, to a large part of Germany : 
2d. to a duchy forming a part of the great duchy of Saxony : 3d, to one of the circles of the 
German empire: 4lh, to the kingdom of Westphalia, created by Napoleon: 5th, to the present; 
Prussian province of W^estphalia, created in 1815. Most of the present province was embraced 
in oach of these divisions. See also Note, p. 3C0. (Map No, XVII.) 



488 MODERN HISTORY. [Part I L 

Janeiro,' the capital of the Portuguese colony of Brazil.- Napoleon 
had already announced,^ in one of his imperial edicts, that " the 
House of Braganza had ceased to reign," and had sent an army under 
Junot to occupy Portugal. On the 27th of November, the Portu- 
guese fleet, bearing the prince regent, the queen, and court, sailed 
for Brazil ; and on the 30th the. French took possession of Lisbon. 

27. The designs of Napoleon for the dethronement of the Penin- 
sular monarchs had been approved by Alexander in the conferences 
of Tilsit ; and when Napoleon returned to Paris he set on foot a 
series of intrigues at Madrid, which soon gave him an opportunity 
of interfering in the domestic affairs of the Spanish nation, his recent 
ally. Charles IV. of Spain, a weak monarch, was the dupe of his 
faithless wife, and of his unprincipled minister Godoy. The latter, 

secured in the French interest by the pretended ffift of a 
IX 1808 . 

principality formed out of dismembered Portugal, al- 
lowed the French troops under Murat to enter Spain ; and by fraud 
and false pretences the frontier fortresses were soon in the hands of 
the invaders. Too late Godoy found himself the dupe of his own 
treachery. Charles, intimidated by the difficulties of his situation, 
resigned ^ the crown to his son Ferdinand, but, by French intrigues, 
was soon after induced to disavow his abdication, while at the same 
time Ferdinand was led to expect a recognition of his royal title from 
the emperor Napoleon. The deluded prince and his father were both 
enticed to Bayonne, where they met Napoleon, who soon compelled 
both to abdicate, and gave the crown to his brother Joseph, who had 
been summoned from the kingdom of Naples to become king of Spain. 
The Neapolitan kingdom was bestowed upon Murat as a reward for 
his military services. 

28. Although many of the Spanish nobility tamely accpiesced in 
this foreign usurpation of the sovereignty of the kingdom, yet the 
great bulk of the nation rose in arms : Ferdinand, although a prisoner 
in France, was proclaimed king : a national junta, or council, was 

1. Rio Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, is the most important commercial city and seaport of 
South America. Population about two hundred thousand, of whom about half are whites, and 
tlie rest mostly negro slaves. 

2. Prior to 1808 Brazil was merely a Portuguese colony, but on the arrival of the prince 
regent and his court, accompanied by a large body of emigrants, January 'i5th, 1808, it was 
raised to a kingdom. In 1822 Brazil was declared a kingdom independent of the crown of 
Portugal. The empire of Brazil, second only in extent to the giant empires of China and 
Russia, embraces nearly the half of the South American continent; but its population— whites, 
negroes, a»id Indians— is less than six millions, of whom only about one million are whites. 

a. Nov. 13th, 1807. b. March 20th, 1808. 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 489 

chosen to direct the affairs of the government ; and the English at 
once sent large supplies of arms and ammunition to their new allies, 
while Napoleon was preparing an overwhelming force to sustain his 
usurpation. A new direction was thus given to affairs, and for a 
time the European war centered in the Spanish Peninsula. 

29. In the first contests vv^ith the invaders the Spaniards were 
generally successfuL A French squadron in the Bay of Cadiz, pre- 
vented from escaping by the presence of an English fleet, was forced 
to surrender : ^ Marshal Moncey, at the head of eight thousand men, 
was repulsed in an attack ^ on the city of V^aiencia : Saragossa, de- 
fended by the heroic Palafox, sustained a siege of sixty-three 
days ;<^ and, although reduced to a heap of ruins, drove the French 
troops from its walls : Cor' dova was indeed taken'i and plundered 
by the French marshal Dupont, yet that officer himself was soon after 
compelled to surrender at Baylen,' with eight thousand men, to the 
patriot general Castanos. This latter event occurred on the 20th 
of July, the very day on which Joseph Bonaparte made his tri- 
umphal entry into Madrid. But the new king himself was soon 
obliged to flee, and the French forces were driven beyond the Ebro." 

30. In the meantime the spirit of resistance had extended to Por- 
tugal : a junta had been established at Oporto^ to conduct the gov- 
ernment : British troops were sent to aid the insurgents, and on the 
21st of August Marshal Junot was defeated at Vimiera,* by Sir 
Arthur Wellesley. This battle was followed by the convention of 
Cintra,^ which led to the evacuation of Portugal by the French 
forces. 

31. Great was the mortification of Napoleon at this inauspicious 
beginning of the Peninsular war, and he deemed it necessary to take 

1. Bayien is a town of Spain, in tlie province of Jaen, twenty-two miles north from the ciiy 
of Jaen. It commands the road leading from Castile into Andalusia. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. The Ebro (aucienlly Iberus) flows through the north-eastern part of Spain, and is the only 
great river of the peninsula that falls into the Mediterranean. Before the second Punic war 
it formed the boundary beLween tlie Ilomau and Carthaginian territories, and in the time of 
Charlemagne, between the IMoorlsh and Christian dominions. {Map No. XIII.) 

3. Oporto, an important commercial city and seaport of Portugal, is on the north bank of the 
Douro, two miles from its nxoutli, and one hundred and seventy-four miles north-eust from 
Lisbon. {Map No. XiH.) 

4. Vimiera is a small town of the Portuguese province of Estremadura, about thirty miles 
north-west from Lisbon. {Map No. XIII.) 

5. Cintra is a small town of Portugal, twelve miles north-west from Lisbon. By the con- 
vention signed here Aug. 22d, ]80y,the French forces were to be conveyed to France with their 
arms, artillery, and properly. This convention was exceedingly unpopular in England. {Map 
No. XIII.) 

a. June I4th. b. Jane 28th. c. .Tune 14th, to Aug. 17th. d. June 8th. 



490 MODERN HISTORY. [Part fl- 

the field in person. Collecting his troops with the greatest rapidity, 
in the early part of November he was in the north of Spain at the 
head of one hundred and eighty thousand men. He at once com- 
municated his own energy to the operations of the army : the Span- 
iards were severely defeated at Reynosa,^ Burgos,b and Tudela ;c^ and, 
on the 4th of December, Napoleon forced an entrance into the capital. 
The British troops, who were marching to the assistance of the Span- 
iards, were driven back upon Corunna,^ and being there attacked ^ 
while making preparations to embark, they compelled 
the enemy to retire, but their brave commander. Sir 
John Moore, was mortally wounded. On the following day the 
British abandoned the shores of Spain, and the possession of the 
country seemed assured to the French emperor. 

32. A short time before the battle of Corunna Napoleon received 
despatches^ which induced him to return immediately to Paris. The 
Austrian emperor, humbled, but not subdued, and stimulated by the 
warlike spirit of his subjects, once more resolved to try the hazards 
of war, while the best troops of Napoleon were occupied in the 
Spanish Peninsula. On the 8th of April large bodies of Austrian 
troops crossed the frontiers of Bohemia, of the Tyrol, and of Italy, 
and soon involved in great danger the dispersed divisions of Napo- 
leon's army. On the 1 7th of the same month Napoleon arrived and 
took the command in person. Baffling the Austrian generals by the 
rapidity of his movements, he speedily concentrated his divisions, 
and in four days of combats and manoeuvres, from the 19th to the 

1. Reynosa, Burgos, and Tudela. (See Map No. XIIT.) Reynosa is forty-seven miles north- 
west from Burgos. Tudela is on tJie Ebro, one hundred and ten miles east from Burgos, 
Burgos is one hundred and thirty-four miles north of Madrid. At Reynosa Blake was defeated 
by the French under Marshal Victor: at Burgos the Spanish count de Belvidere was over- 
thrown by Marshal Soult : and at Tudela Palafox and Castanos were beaten by Marshal Lannes. 

2. Corunna is a city and seaport of Spain, at the north-western extremity of the kingdom. 
Sir John Moore was struck down by a cannon ball as he was animating a regiment to the 
charge. " Wrapped by his attendants in his military cloak, he was laid in a grave hastily 
formed on the ramparts of Corunna, where a monument was soon after constructed over his 
uncoffined remains by the generosity of the French marshal Ney. Not a word was spoken as 
the melancholy interment by torch light took place : silently they laid him in his grave, while 
the distant cannon of the battle fired the funeral honors to his memory." — Mlison. 

This touching scene has been vividly described in one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry 
in the English language, beginning— 

" Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, 

As his corse to the ramparts we hurried ; 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot 

O'er the grave where our hero we buried." 

a. Nov. 10th and llth. b. Nov. 10th. c. Nov. Slet. 

d. Jan. IGth, ISOil. e. Jan 1st, 1809. 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 491 

22d inclusive, he completed the ruin of the Austrian army. On 
the last of these days he defeated the Archduke Charles at Eckmuhl/ 
and compelled him to recross the Danube. Rapidly following up his 
victories, he entered Vienna on the 13th of May, and although worsted 
in the battle of Aspern" on the 21st and 22d, on the 5th of July he 
gained a triumph at Wagram,' and soon after dictated a peace^ by 
which Austria was compelled to surrender territory containing three 
and a-half millions of inhabitants. 

33. During the war with Austria, the brave Tyrolese had seized 
the opportunity to raise the standard of revolt ; and it was not until 
two powerful French armies had been sent into their country that 
they were subdued. The British government also sent a fleet, and 
an army of forty thousand men, to make a diversion against Napo- 
leon on the coast of Holland ; but the expedition proved a failure. 
The war still continued in the Spanish Peninsula, and Sir Arthur 
Wellesley was sent out by the British government with a large force 
to cooperate with the Spaniards. In the meantime difficulties had 
arisen between the French emperor and the Pope Pius VII. : French 
troops entered Home; and by a decree^ of Napoleon the Papal 
States'^ were annexed to the French empire. This was followed by 
a bull of excommunication^ against Napoleon, whereupon the pope 
was seized and conveyed a prisoner into France, where he was de- 
tained until the spring of 1814. 

34. Near the close of 1809 the announcement was made that Na- 
poleon was about to obtain a divorce from tlie Empress Josephine, 

1. Eckmulil is a small village of Bavaria, thirteen miles south of Ratisbon, and fifty-two 
miles north-east from Munich. Marshal Davoust, having particularly distinguished himself 
in the battle of the 22d, was raised by Napoleon to the dignity of prince of Eckmuhl. {Maji 
No. XV U.) 

-1. Jispern is a small Austrian village on the eastern bank of the Danube, opposite the island 
of Loban, about two miles below Vienna. {Map No. XVII.) After two days' continuous 
fighting, with vast loss on both sides, Napoleon was obliged to withdraw his troops from the 
field, and take refuge in the island of Loban. Marshal Lannes, one of Napoleon's ablest gen- 
erals, was mortally wounded on the field of Aspern, having both his legs carried away by a 
cannon ball. Napoleon was deeply affected on beholding the dying Marshal brought oti liie 
field on a litter, and extended in the agonies of death. Kneeling beside the rude couch, he 
wept freely. 

3. Wagram is a small Austrian village eleven miles north-east of Vienna. {Map No. XVII.) 
In the battle of Wagram each party lost about twenty-five thousand men : few prisoners werp 
taken on either side, and the Austrians retired from the field in good order. The French 
bulletin, copied by Sir Walter Scott, says the French took twenty thousand prisoners, — now 
admitted to be a grossly erroneous statement. The retreat of the Austrians, however, gave to 
Napoleon all the moral advantages of a victory. 

a. Treaty of Vienna, Oct. 14tli. b. May 17lh, 180D. 

c. See Note, p. d. June lllh. 



492 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

for tlie purpose of allying hiraself with one of the royal families of 
Europe. To Josephine Napoleon was warmly attached ; hut reasons 
of state policy were, in his breast, superior to the dearest affections. 
His first marriage having been annulled ^ by the French 
senate, early in 1810 he received the hand of Maria 
Louisa of Austria, daughter of the emperor Francis. This mar- 
riage, which seemed permanently to establish Napoleon's power, by 
uniting the lustre of descent with the grandeur of his throne, was 
one of the principal causes of his final ruin, as it was justly feared 
by the other European powers that, secured by the Austrian alliance, 
he would strive to make himself master of Europe. His conduct 
towards Holland justified this suspicion. » Dissatisfied with his broth- 
er's government of that country, he, soon after, by an imperial de- 
cree,^ incorporated Holland with the French empire. In the same 
year Bernadotte, one of his generals, was advanced to the throne of 
Sweden. Napoleon continued his career of aggrandizement in the 
central parts of Europe, and extended the French limits almost to 
the frontiers of Russia, thereby exciting the strongest jealousy of 
the Kussian emperor, who renewed his intercourse with the court of 
London, and began to prepare for that tremendous conflict with 
France which he saw approaching. 

35. The war still continued in the Spanish peninsula. Sir Arthur 
Wellesley, who had recently been created Lord Wellington, had the 
chief command of the English, Spanish, and Portuguese forces. On 
the 1 0th of July the Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo^ surrend- 
ered to Marshal Massena, but on the 27th of September Massena 
was defeated in an attack upon Wellington on the heights of Busaco.^ 
Wellington, still pursuing his plan of defensive operations, then re- 
tired to the strongly-fortified lines of Torres Vedras,^ which defend- 

1. Ciudad Rodrigo (in Spanish the-oo-dad' rod-ree-go, meaning, " the city Rodrigo,") is a 
strougly-fortitied city of Spain, fifty-five miles south-west from Salamanca. In 1812 this city 
was retaken by Wellington, an achievement which acquired for him the title of Duke of Ciudad 
Kodrigo from the Spanish government. {Map No. XIII.) 

2. Busaco is a mountain ridge starting from the northern bank of the river Mondego a few 
miles north-east of Coimbra, and extending north-west about eight miles. On the summit of 
the northern portion of this range, around the convent of Busaco, seventeen miles north-east 
of Coimbra, Wellington collected his whole army of fifty thousand men on the evening of Sep- 
tember aoth, while Massena, with seventy-two thousand, lay at its foot, determined to force the 
passage, which he attempted early on the following morning, but without success. {Map No. 
XIII.) 

3. Torres Vedras is a small village on the road from Lisbon to Coimbra, twenty-four miles 
north-west of the former. The '-Lines of Torres Vedras," constnicted by Wellington in 18J0, 
consisted of three distinct ranges of defence, extending from the river Tagus to the Atlantic 

a. Dec. 15th, IHOQ. b. July 9th, 1810. 



Chap. V1.J NINETEENTH CENTURY. 493 

ed the approaches to Lisbon. Massena followed, but in vain en- 
deavored to find a weak spot where he could attack with any prospect 
of success, and after continuing before the lines more than a month, 
he broke up his position on the 14th of November, and, for the first 
time since the accession of Napoleon, the French eagles commenced 
a final retreat. 

36. The early part of 1811 witnessed the siege of Badajoz' by 
Marshal Soult, and its surrender to the French on the 

10th of March ; but this was soon followed by the battle 
of xllbuera,'' in which the united British and Spanish forces gained 
an important victory. Many battles were fought during the re- 
mainder of the year, but they were attended with no important 
results on either side. 

37. The year 1812 opened with the surrender of the important 
city of Valencia to Marshal Suchet on the 9th of Jan- 

•^ XIII. RUSSIAN 

uary — the last of the long series of French triumphs in campaign, 
the peninsula. On the same day Wellington, in another 1812. 
quarter, laid siege to Ciudad Rodrigo ; and the capture^ of this place 
by the British arms was soon followed ^ by that of Badajoz. Wel- 
lington, following up his successes, next defeated Marmont^ in the 
battle of Salamanca :^ the intrusive king Joseph fled from Mad- 
rid, and on the next day the capital of Spain was in the possess- 
ion of the British army. The concentration of the French forces 
again compelled the cautious Wellington to retreat to Portugal ; but 
early in the following year, 1813, he resumed the offensive, — gained 

Ocean,— the most advanced, embracing Torres Vedras, being twenty-nine miles in length,— the 
second, about eight miles in the rear of the first, being twenty-four miles, and the third, or 
" lines of embarcation," in the vicinity of Lisbon, designed to cover the embarcation of the 
troops if that extremity should become necessary. More th.'m fifty miles of fortifications, bris- 
tling with six hundred pieces of artillery, and one hundred and fifty forts, flaniced with abattis 
and breastworks, and presenting, in some j)laces, high hills artificially scarped, in others deep 
and narrow passes carefully choked, and artificial pools and marshes made by damming up the 
streams, were defended by seventy thousand disposable men. The French force under Massena 
amounted to about the same number. {Map No. XIII.) 

1. Badajoz is a city in the west of Spain, on the eastern bank of the Guadiana, about two 
hundred miles south-west of Madrid, and one hundred and thirty-five miles east of Lisbon. 
{Map^o-Xlll.) 

2. filhiiera is a small town fourteen miles south-east of Badajoz. In the battle of Albuera, 
fought May 16th, 1811, the allied British, Spanish, and Portuguese troops, were commanded by 
M;irshal Beresford, and the French by Marshal Soult. {Map No. XIII.; 

3. Salamanca is a city of Leon in Spain, one hundred and nineteen miles north-west from 
Madrid. It was known to the Romans by the name of Salamantica. During a long period it 
was celebrated as being the seat of a University, which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 
was attended by from ten thousand to fifteen thousand students. (Map No. XIII.) 

a. Jan. 12th. b. April Clh. c. July 22d. d. Aug. 11th. 



4§4 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

the decisive battle^ of Vittoria,^ and before the close of the campaign 
drove the French across the Pyrenees into their own territories. 

38. During these reverses to the French arms, events of greater 
magnitude than those of the peninsular war were occupying the per- 
sonal attention of Napoleon. The jealousy of Russia at his repeat- 
ed encroachments in Central and Northern Europe has already been 
mentioned : moreover, the commercial interests of Russia, in com- 
mon with those of the other Northern powers, had been greatly in- 
jured by the measures of Napoleon for destroying the trade of Eug- 
land ; but the French emperor refused to abandon his favorite policy, 
and the angry discussions between the cabinets of St. Petersburg 
and Versailles led to the assembling of vast armies on both sides, 
and the commencement of hostilities in the early part of the summer 
of 1812. Napoleon had driven Sweden to enter into an alliance with 
Russia and England ; but he arrayed around his standard the im- 
mense forces of France, Italy, Germany, the Confederation of the 
Rhine, Poland, and the two monarchies Prussia and Austria. 

39. The " Grand Army" assembled in Poland for the Russian 
war amounted to the immense aggregate of more than five hundred 
thousand men, of whom eighty thousand were cavalry — the whole 
supported by thirteen hundred pieces of cannon. Nearly twenty 
thousand chariots or carts, of all descriptions, followed the army, 
while the whole number of horses amounted to one hundred and 
eighty-seven thousand. To oppose this vast army the Russians had 
collected, at the beginning of the contest, nearly three hundred thou- 
sand men ; but as the war was carried into the interior their forces 
increased in numbers until the armies on both sides were nearly 
equal. 

40. On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the Niemen at 
the head of the " Grand Army," and entered upon his ever mem- 
orable Russian campaign. As the enormous superiority of his forces 
rendered it hopeless for the Russians to attempt any immediate re- 
sistance, they gradually fell back before the invaders, wasting the 
country as they retreated. The wisdom of this course soon became 
apparent. A terrible tempest soon set in, and the horses in the 
French army perished by thousands from the combined effects of in- 

1. Vittoria is a town ia the Spanish province of Alava, on the road between Burgos and 
Bayonne, sixty miles north-east from the former. The battle of Vittoria almost annihilated the 
French power in Spain, {Map No. XIII.) 

a. June21sf, 1813, 



Chap. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 495 

cessant rain and scanty forage : the soldiers sickened in great num- 
bers ; and before a single shot had been fired twenty-five thousand 
sick and dying men filled the hospitals ; ten thousand dead horses 
strewed the road to Wilna,^ and one hundred and twenty pieces of 
cannon were abandoned for want of the means of transport. 

41. Still Napoleon pressed onward in several divisions, frequently 
skirmishing with the enemy, and driving them before him, until he 
arrived under the fortified walls of Smolensko, where thirty thousand 
Russians made a stand to oppose him. A hundred and fifty cannon 
were brought up to batter the walls, but without efi'ect, for the thick- 
ness of the ramparts defied the efi'orts of the artillery. ^ But the 
French howitzers set fire to some houses near the ramparts; the 
flames spread with wonderful rapidity, and during tlie night which 
followed the battle a lurid light from the burning city was cast over 
the French bivouacs, grouped in dense masses for several miles in 
circumference. At three in the morning a solitary French soldier 
scaled the walls, and penetrated into the interior ; but he found 
neither inhabitants nor opponents. The work of destruction had 
been completed by the voluntary sacrifice of the inhabitants, who had 
withdrawn with the army, leaving a ruined city, naked walls, and the 
cannon which mounted them, as the only trophy to the conqueror. 

42. The division of the army led by Napoleon followed the 
Russians on the road to Moscow, engaging in frequent but indecisive 
encounters with the rear guard. When the retreating forces had 
reached the small village of Borodino,'^ their commander, Greneral 
Kutusoff, resolved to risk a battle, in the hope of saving Moscow. 
On the evening of the 6th of September the two vast armies took their 
positions facing each other, — each numbering more than a hundred 
and thirty thousand men — the Russians having six hundred and forty 
pieces of cannon, and the Frencli five hundred and ninety. Napoleon 
sought to stimulate the enthusiasm of his soldiers by recounting to 
them the glories of Marengo, of Jena, and of Austerlitz ; while a 
procession of dignified clergy passed through the Russian ranks, be- 
stowing their blessings upon the kneeling soldiers, and invoking the 
aid of the Grod of battles to drive the invader from the land. 

1. TVilna, the former capital of Lithuania, is at the confluence of the rivers Wilenka and 
Wihia, eastern tributaries of the Nienien, about two hundred and fifty miles north-east from 
Warsaw. Population nearly forty thousand, of whom more than twenty thousand are Jews. 
(Map No. XVH.) 

2. Borodino (bor-o-dee'-no) is a small village about seventy miles south-west from Moscow, 
on the small stream of the Kolotza, a tributary of the Moskwa. 

a Aug. 11th. 



496 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

43. At six o'clock on the morning of the 7th a gun fired from the 
French lines announced the commencement of the battle : the roar 
of more than a thousand cannon shook the earth : vast clouds of 
smoke, shutting out the light of the sun, arose in awful sublimity 
over the scene ; and two hundred and sixty thousand combatants, led 
on in the gathering gloom by the light of the cannon and musketry, 
engaged in the work of death. The battle raged with desolating fury 
until night put an end to its horrors. The slaughter was immense. 
The loss on both sides was nearly equal, amounting, in the aggre- 
gate, to ninety thousand in killed and wounded. The Kussian 
position was eventually carried, but neither side gained a decisive 
victory. 

44. On the day after the battle the Russians retired, in perfect 
order, on the great road to Moscow. Preparations were immediately 
made by the inhabitants for abandoning that city, long revered as 
the cradle of the empire ; and when, on the 14th, Napoleon entered 
it, no deputation of citizens awaited him to deprecate his hostility, 
but the dwellings of three hundred thousand persons were as silent 
as the wilderness. It seemed like a city of the dead. Napoleon 
took up his residence in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the czars ; 
but the Russian authorities had determined that their beloved city 
should not afford a shelter to the invaders. At midnight on the 
night of the 15th a vast light was seen to illuminate the most distant 
part of the city ; fires broke out in all directions ; and Moscow soon 
exhibited a vast ocean of flame agitated by the wind. Nine-tentlis 
of the city were consumed, and Napoleon was driven to seek a tem- 
porary refuge for his army in the country ; but afterwards returning 
to the Kremlin, which had escaped the ravages of the fire, he re- 
mained there until the 19th of October, when, all his proposals of 
peace being rejected, he was compelled to order a retreat. 

45. The horrors of that retreat, which, during fifty-five days that 
intervened until the recrossing of the Niemen, was almost one con- 
tinued battle, exceeded anything before known in the annals of war. 
The exasperated Russians intercepted the retreating army wherever 
an opportunity offered ; and a cloud of Cossacks, hovering incessant- 
ly around the wearied columns, gradually wore away their numbers. 
But the severities of the Russian winter, which set in on the 6th of 
November, were far more destructive of life than the sword of the 
enemy. The weather, before mild, suddenly changed to intense cold : 
the wind howled frightfully through the forests, or swept over the 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 497 

plains with resistless fury ; and the snow fell in thick and continued 
showers, soon confounding all objects, and leaving the army to wander 
without landmarks through an icy desert. Thousands of the soldiers, 
falling benumbed with cold, and exhausted, perished miserably in sight 
of their companions ; and the route of the rear guaird of the army was 
literally choked up by the icy mounds of the dead. In their nightly 
bivouacs crowds of starving men prepared, around their scanty fires, 
a miserable meal of rye mixed with snow water and horse flesh ; but 
numbers never awoke from the slumbers that followed ; and the sites 
of the night fires were marked by circles of dead bodies, with their 
feet still resting on the extinguished piles. Clouds of ravens, issuing 
from the forests, hovered over the dying remains of the soldiers ; 
while troops of famished dogs, which had followed the army from 
Moscow, howled in the rear, and often fell upon their victims before 
life was extinct. The ambition of Napoleon had led the pride and 
the chivalry of Europe to perish amid the snows of a Russian 
winter ; and he bitterly felt the taunt of the enemy, " Could the 
French find no graves in their own land ?" 

46. Napoleon had first thought of remaining in winter quarters at 
Smolensko ; but the exhausted state of his magazines, and the con- 
centrating around him of vast forces of the enemy, which threatened 
soon to overwhelm him, convinced him that a protracted stay was 
impossible, and on the 14th of November the retreat was renewed — 
Napoleon, in the midst of his still foithful guards, leading the ad- 
vance, and the heroic Ney bringing up the rear. But the enemy 
harassed them at every step. During the 16th, 17th, and 18th, in 
the battles of Krasnoi,^ Napoleon lost ten thousand killed, twenty 
thousand taken prisoners, and more than a hundred pieces of cannon 
fell into the hands of the enemy. The terrible passage of the Bere- 
sina,^ which was purchased by the loss of sixteen thousand prisoners, 
and twenty-four thousand killed or drowned in the stream, completed 
the ruin of the Grand Army. All subordination now ceased, and it 
was with difficulty that Marshal Ney could collect three thousand 
men on foot to form the rear guard, and protect the helpless multi- 
tude from the indefatigable Cossacks ; and when at length the few 
remaining fugitives reached the passage of the Niemen, the rear 
guard was reduced to thirty men. The veteran marshal, bearing a 
musket, and still facing the enemy, was the last of the Grand Army 

1. Krasnoi is a small town about thirty miles south-west from Smolensko. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. The Beresina is a western tributary of the Dnieper. See Map No. XVII. 

32 



4^ MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

who left the Russian territory. Napoleon had already abandoned 
the remnant of his forces, and, setting out in a sledge for Paris, he 
arrived there at midnight on the 18th of December, even before 
the news of his terrible reverses had reached the capital. It has 
been estimated that, in this famous Russian campaign, one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand men of the army of Napoleon perished in 
battle ; that one hundred and thirty -two thousand died of fatig-ue, 
hunger, and cold ; and that nearly two hundred thousand were taken 
prisoners. 

47. While these great events were transpiring on the continent of 
Europe, difficulties arose between the United States of America and 
Great Britain, which led to the opening of war between those two 
powers in the summer of 1812. Mexico was at this time passing 
through the struggles of her first Revolution ; and a feeble war was 
still maintained between the French and British possessions in the 
Indian seas ; but these events were of little interest in comparison 
with that mighty drama which was enacting around the centre of Na- 
poleon's power, and which was converting nearly all Europe into a 
field of blood. 

48. Notwithstanding his terrible reverses in the Russian campaign, 

Napoleon found that he still possessed the confidence of 
the French nation : he at once obtained from the senate 
a new levy of three hundred and fifty thousand men — took the most 
vigorous measures to repair his losses, and, having arranged his dif- 
ficulties with the pope, on the loth of April he left Paris for the 
theatre of war. In the meantime Prussia and Sweden had joined 
the alliance against him ; a general insurrection spread over the 
German States ; Austria wavered ; and already the confederates had 
advanced as far as the Elbe. On the 2d of May Napoleon gained 
the battle of Lutzen, and a fortnight later that of Bautzen ;^ but as 
these were not decisive, on the 4th of July an armistice was agreed 
to, and a congress met at Prague to consider terms of peace. 

49. As Napoleon would listen to nothing calculated to limit his 
power, on the expiration of the armistice, on the 10th of August, 
war was renewed, when the Austrian emperor, abandoning the cause 
of his son-in-law, joined the allies. Napoleon at once commenced a 
series of vigorous oj)erations against his several foes, and with vari- 

1. Bautzen (bout-sen) is a town of Saxony, on the eastern bank of the river Spree, thirty-two 
miles north-east from Dresden. (Map No. XVII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 499 

ous success fought the battles of Culm,^ Gross-Beren,'' the Katsbach,^ 
and Dennewitz/ in which the allies, although not decidedly victorious, 
were constantly gaining strength. In the first battle of Leipsic, 
fought on the 16th of October, the result was indecisive, but in the 
battle of the 18th the French were signally defeated, and on the fol- 
lowing morning began a retrograde m^pfement towards the Khine. 
Pressed on all sides by the allies, great numbers were made prisoners 
during the retreat ; about eighty thousand, left to garrison the 
Prussian fortresses, surrendered; the Saxons, Hanoverians, and 
Hollanders, threw off the French yoke ; and it was at this time that 
Wellington was completing the expulsion of the French from Spain. 
50. The year 1814 opened with the invasion of France, on the 
eastern frontiers, by the Prussian, Russian, and Austrian 
armies ; while Wellington, havmg crossed the Pyrenees, 
laid siege to Bayonne : Bernadotte, the old comrade of Napoleon, 
but now king of Sweden, was marching against France at the head 
a hundred thousand men ; and Murat, king of Naples, brother-in-law 
of the French emperor, eager to secure his crown, entered into a se- 
cret treaty with Austria for the expulsion of the French from Italy. 
Never did the military talents of Napoleon shine with greater lustre 
than at this crisis. During two months, with a greatly inferior force, 
he repelled the attacks of his enemies, gained many brilliant victo- 
ries, and electrified all Europe by the rapidity and skill of his move- 
ments. But the odds were too great against him ; the enemy had 
crossed the Rhine, and while, by a bold movement, Napoleon threw 
himself into the rear of the allies, hoping to intimidate them into a 
retreat, they marched upon Paris, which was compelled to capitulate 
before he could come to its relief. Two days later the emperor was 
formally deposed by the senate, and, on the 6th of April, with a 
trembling hand, he signed an unconditional abdication of the thrones 
of France and Italy. By a treaty concluded between him and the 
allies on the 11th, Napoleon was promised the sovereignty of the 

1. Culm is a small town in the north of Bohemia, at the foot of the Erze-Gebirg mountains, 
about fifly miles norlh-west from Prague. On the 30th of August, 1813, the French under 
Vandamme were utterly overwhelmed by the allied Austrians, Russians, and Prussians, com- 
manded by Barclay de Tolly. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Gross-Beren (groce-baren) is a small village a short distance south of Berlin, and east 
of Potsdam (Map No. XVII.) 

3. The Katshach (kats-back) is a western tributary of the Oder, iu Silicia. The battle, or 
several battles of that name, were fought near the eastern bank of that stream, west of Liegnitz, 
and fifty-five miles north-west from Breslau. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Dennewitz is a small village of Prussian Saxony, seven miles north-east from Wittemberg. 
{Map No. XVII.) 



500 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

island of Elba/ and a pension of one hundred thousand pounds per 
annum. On the 3d of May, Louis XVIII., returning from his long 
exile, reentered Paris : to conciliate the French people he gave them 
a constitutional charter, and soon after concluded a formal treaty 
with the allies, by which the continental dominions of France were 
restricted to what they haHbeen in 1 792. 

51, The final settlement of European affairs had been left to a 
general congress of the ministers of the allied powers, which assem- 
bled at Vienna on the 25th of September ; but while the conferences 
were still pending, the congress was thrown into consternation by the 
announcement that Napoleon had left Elba. An extensive conspira- 
cy had been formed throughout France for restoring the 
fallen emperor, and on the 1st of March, 1815, he landed 

at Frejus, accompanied by only eleven hundred men : — everywhere 
the soldiery received him with enthusiasm : Ney, who had sworn 
fidelity to the new government, went over to him at the head of a 
force sent to arrest his progress ; and on the evening of the 20th of 
March he reentered the French capital, which Louis XVIII. had 
left early in the morning. With the exception of Augereau, Mar- 
mont, Macdonald, and a few others, all the officers, civil and military, 
embraced his cause ; — at the end of a month his authority was rees- 
tablished throughout all France ; and he again found himself at the 
summit of power, by one of the most remarkable transitions recorded 
in history. 

52. In vain Napoleon now attempted to open negotiations with 
the allied powers, and professed an ardent desire for peace ; the allies 
denounced him as the common enemy of Europe, and refused to re- 
cognize his authority as emperor of the French people. All Europe 
was now in arms against the usurper, and it was estimated that, by the 
middle of summer, six hundred thousand effective men could be as- 
sembled against him on the French frontiers. But nothing which 
genius and activity could accomplish was wanting on the part of Na- 
poleon to meet the coming storm ; — and in a country that seemed 
drained of men and money, he was able, by the 1st of June, to put 

1. Elba^ (the (Etholia of the Greeks, and the llua or Ilva of the Romans,) is a mouutainous 
island of the Mediterranean, between the Italian coast and Corsica, six or seven miles from the 
nearest point of the former, and having an area of about one hundred and fifty square miles. 
It derives its chief historical interest from its having been the residence and empire of Napo- 
leon from the 3d of May ldl4, to the 2Gth of February 1815. During this short period a road 
was opened between the two principal towns, trade revived, and a new era seemed to have 
dawned upon the island. (Jllap No. VIII.) 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 501 

on foot an army of two hundred and twenty thousand veterans, who 
had served in his former wars. 

53. His policy was to attack the allies in detail, before their forces 
could be concentrated, and with this view he hastened across the 
Belgian frontier on the 15th of June, with a force numbering, at that 
point, one hundred and twenty thousand men. On the 16th he defeated 
the Prussians, under Blucher, at Ligny,' but at the same time Ney was 
defeated by Wellington at Quatre Bras.'^ The defeat of the Prussians 
induced Wellington to fall back upon Waterloo,^ where, at eleven 
o'clock on the morning of the 18th, he was attacked by Napoleon in 
person, while, at the same time, large bodies of French and Prussians 
were engaged at Wavre.^ On the field of Waterloo the combat 
raged during the day with terrific fury — Napoleon in vain hurling 
column after column upon the British lines, which withstood his as- 
saults like a wall of adamant ; and when, at length, at seven in the 
evening, he brought up the Imperial Guard for a final effort, it was 
driven back in disorder. At the same time Blucher, coming up with 
the Prussians, completed the rout of the French army; The broken 
host fled in all directions, and Napoleon himself, hastening to Paris, was 
the herald of his own defeat. Once more the capital capitulated, and 
was occupied by foreign troops : Napoleon a second time abdicated 
the throne, and, after vainly attempting to escape to America, sur- 
rendered himself to a British man-of-war. He was banished by the 
allies to the island of St. Helena,^ where he died on the 5th of May, 

1. IJgny is a small village ou the small stream of the same name, two or three miles north- 
east of Fleurus, and about eighteen miles east of south from Waterloo. {Maps Nos. XII. 
and XV.) 

2. Quatre Bras (kah-tr-brah " four arms,"; Is at the meeting of four roads about seventeen 
miies south from Brussels, and nearly ten miles south from Waterloo. {Maps Nos. XII. 
and XV.) 

3. Waterloo is a small village or hamlet of Belgium, nine miles south of Brussels, and on the 
south-western border of the forest of Soignies. The great road from Brussels leading south to 
Charleroi passes through Waterloo, about three-quarters of a mile south of which was the 
centre of the position of the allies, who occupied the crest of a range of gentle eminences, ex- 
tending about two miles in length, and crossing the high road at right angles. The French 
army occupied a corresponding line of ridges nearly parallel, on the opposite side of the valley, 
and about three-quarters of a mile distant. In the valley between these ridges the " Battle of 
Waterloo" was fought. {Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 

4. Wavre is a small village on the western bank of a small stream called the Dyle, nine miles 
a little south of east from Waterloo, and fifteen miles south-east from Brussels. The river Dyle 
is not deep, but at the period of the battle it was swollen by the recent heavy rain, and the 
roads were in a miry state. {Maps Nos. XII. and XV.) 

5. St. Helena is an island of the Atlantic Ocean, belonging to Great Britain, in fifteen deg. 
fifteen rain, south lat., and twelve hundred miles west from the coast of Benguela in South Af- 
rica. Length ten and a-half miles, breadth six and a-Iialf miles. It is a rocky island, the inte- 
rior of which is a plateau about fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea. The highest 



50^ MODERN HISTORY. [Paet IL 

1821, during one of the most violent tempests that had ever raged 
on the island — fitting time for the soul of Napoleon to take its de- 
parture. In his last moments his thoughts wandered to the scenes of 
his military glory, and his last words were those of command, as he 
fancied himself at the head of his armies. 

54. After the capitulation of Paris, the tranquilization of France, 
and the future peace and safety of Europe, received the first atten- 
tion of the allies. Louis XVIII. following in the rear of their 
armies, entered the capital on the 8th of July; but the French 
people felt too deeply the humiliation of defeat to express any joy at 
his restoration. The mournful tragedy which followed, in the exe- 
cution of Marshal Ney and Labedoyere for high treason in favoring 
Napoleon's return from Elba, after the undoubted protection which 
had been guaranteed them by the capitulation of Paris, was a stain 
upon the character of the allies ; and although Ney's treason was 
beyond that of any other man, to the end of the world his guilt will 
be forgotten in the broken faith of his enemies, and the tragic interest 
and noble heroism of his death. The fate of Murat, king of Naples, 
was equally mournful, but less unjust. On Napoleon's landing at 
Frejus he had made a diversion in his favor by breaking his alliance 
with Austria, and commencing the war ; but the cowardly Neapoli- 
tans were easily overthrown, and Murat was obliged to seek refuge in 
France. At the head of a few followers he afterwards made a descent 
upon the coast of Naples, in the hope of regaining his power ; but 
being seized, he was tried by a military commission, condemned, and 
executed. 

55. On the 20th of November, 1815, the second treaty of Paris 
was concluded between France and the allied powers, by wdiich the 
French frontier was narrowed to nearly the state in which it stood 
in 1790: twenty-eight million pounds sterling were to be paid by 
France for the expenses of the war, and a larger sum still for the 



mountain summit is two thousand seven hundred and Ihree feet in heiglit. Jameslown, (he port, 
and residence of the authorities, is the only town. Longwood, the residence of Napoleon, stands 
on the plateau, in the middle of an extensive park. After Napoleon's deatli the house was for 
some time uninhabited, but was finally converted into a kind of farming establishment; and 
recently, the room in which the conqueror of Austerlitz breathed his last, was occupied as a 
cart-house and stable ! 

Napoleon arrived at St. Helena on the 13th of October, 1815, and there he expired on the 51h 
of May, 1821. His remains, after having been deposited for nineteen years in a humble gravo 
near the house, were, in 1840, conveyed with great pomp and ceremony to France, where, 
agreeably to the wish expressed in his last will, they now repose, in the Hotel des luvalides, in 
Paris. 



Chap VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 503 

spoliations which she had inflicted on other powers during her Revo- 
lution, and for five years her frontier fortresses were to be placed in 
the hands of her recent enemies ; while the vast treasures of art 
which adorned the museums of the Louvre — the trophies of a hundred 
victories — were to be restored to the States from which they had 
been pillaged by the orders of Napoleon. Mournfully the Parisians 
parted with these memorials of the glories of the consulate and the 
empire. The tide of conquest had now set against France herself: — 
her pride was broken — her humiliation complete — and the iron en- 
tered into the soul of the nation. 



SECTION II. 

FROM THE FALL OF NAPOLEON TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
I. THE PERIOD OF PEACE : 1815—1820. 

ANALYSIS. [Treaties of 1815.] 1. Treaty between Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Eng- 
land. The " Holy Alliance." General accession to it. — 2. Its authcrship, objects, and effects. — 
3. Condition of Europe. Continued popular excitement, but change in its objects. 

4. The social contest in England. Prosperity of England during the war. — 5. Disappointed 
expecLitions. Causes of a general revulsion. Scarcity, in 1816. — (5. Other contributing causes — 
diminished supply of the precious metals, &c. Demands of the Radicals. — 7. Policy of (he 
English government. Reforms granted. Reported conspiracy. — 8. Stringent measures of gov- 
ernment. The meeting at Manchester. [Manchester.] Continued complaints. Goveniment 
carries all its important measures. — 9. The piratical States of Northern Africa. [Barbary.] llie 
United States of America and Algiers. — 10. Chastisement of Algiers by an English squadron, in 
1816. — n. Importance of these events. Decline of the Ottoman empire. 

12. Situation of France at the time of the second restoration. Change in public feeling 
against the Bonapartists and Republicans. Punishment of the Revolutionists demanded. — 13. 
Religious and political feuds. Atrocities. — 14. Demands, and acts, of the Chamber of Deputies 
of 1815. Singular position of parties. — 15. Policy of the king and ministry, and coup ductal 
iKoo-da-tah) of Sept. 1816.— 16. Effects of the new measures. 

II. REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, GREECE, 
FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 1820—1831. 

I. Spain. 1. Spain from 1815 to 1820. Grant of a constitution in 1820. The party opposed 
to it. Action taken by the European powers. — 2. Interference of the French in 1823. Re 
raainder of the reign of Ferdinand. The course of England and the United States of America. 

II. Portugal. ], Situation of Portugal. Revolution of 1820. Opposition to, and sup- 
pression of, the new constitution. Anarcliy. — 2. Don Pedro. Don Miguel's usurpation. Civil 
war. Foreign interference, and restoration of tranquillity. 

III. Naples. 1. History of the kingdom of Naples previous to 1815.— 2. The subsequent rule 
of Ferdinand. Popular insurrection in July, 182!). Grant of a constitution. Resolution of 
Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to put down the constitution. [Troppau.] — 3. Conduct of Ferdi- 
nand. [Laybach.] An Austrian army suppresses the Revolution. 

IV. Piedmont. 1. Account of the Sardinian monarchy. [Sardinia. Tessino.] Feelings and 



504 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

complaints of the Piedmontesc— 2. Insurrection in Piedmont, March 1821. Success of the in- 
surgents, and abdication of the king. Austrian interference suppresses tlie Revolution. 

V. The Greek Revolution. 1. History of Greece from 1481 to 1821. Proclamation of 
Grecian independence in 1821. Suppression of the Revolution in Northern Greece. [Islain- 
isra. Trieste.]— 2. Beginning and spread of the Revolution in the Morea. Proclamation of 
the Messenian senate. [Kalamatia.] Aid extended to the Greelis.— 3. Rage, and cruelties, of the 
Turks. Effects produced.— 4. Events on the Asiatic coast, in Candia, Cypress, Rhodes, &c. 
Successes and retaliatory measures of the Greeks. [Monembasia. Navarino. Tripolitza.]— 5. 
Defeat of the Turks at Thermopylie. The peninsula of Cassandra laid waste by them. [Cas- 
sandra.] The Turks driven from the country to the cities. 

[1822.]— 6. Acts of the Greek congress. [Epidaurus.] Dissensions and difficulties among 
the Greeks.— 7. Principal military events of 1822. [Scio. Napoli di Romania.]— 8. Destruction 
of Scio. Events in Southern Macedonia. [Salonica.]— 8. Events in Western Greece. The 
Greek fire-ships. [Tenedos.] Great loss of Turkish vessels. Taking of Napoli di Romania. 

[1823.]— 9. Events of the war during the year 1823. [Missolonghi.] The poet Lord Byron. 
[1824.]— 10. The Turks besiege Negropont, subdue Candia, reduce Ipsara, and attack Samos. 
The Egyptian fleet. [1825-6.]— 11. Successes of Ibrahim Pacha in the Morea. Siege and fall 
of Missolonghi. [Salona.] Fate of the inhabitants of Missolonghi.— 12. Danger apprehended 
from the successes of Ibrahim Pacha, and treaty of London, July 1827.— 13. Allied squadron 
sent to the archipelago. Battle of Navarino. Rage of the Porte.— 14. French and English army 
sent to the Morea, 1828. War between Russia and Turkey. [Pruth.] Convention with Ibra- 
him Pacha. Successes of the Greeks. Retaliatory measures of the sultan.— 15. Protocol of the 
allies, Jan. 1827. [Cyclades.] Successes of the Russians, and peace of Adrianople. [Balkan 
IVIts.]— 16. Unsettled condition of the country and its subsequent history. 

VI. The French Revolution of 1830. 1. Beginning of the reign of Charles X. Principles 
of his government and opposition of the people. The Polignac ministry, 1829.— 2. The royal 
speech at the opening of the Chambers in 1830. Effects. Reply of the Chambers. Dissolution 
of the Chambers.— 3. War with Algiers.— 1. Continued excitement in France. Result of the 
elections. Course pursued by the ministry. The three ordinances of July 26th. Accompany- 
ing report of the ministers.— 5. The course pursued by the public journals. Excitement 
throughout Paris. Apathy of the king and ministers.— 6. Events of the 27th. Marmont. 
Arming of the people.— 7. On the 28th the riot assumes the aspect of a Revolution. The con- 
test during the day. Its results.— 8. Renewal of the contest on the third day. Defection of 
the troops of the line, and success of the revolution. Installation of a provisional government. 
Louis Phillippe elected king.— 9. Alarm of the continental sovereigns. The emperor of Russia. 
Charles X. and his ministers. 

VIL Belgium. 1. Effects of the French Revolution upon Europe. Revolution in Belgium. 
—2. Vain attempts at reconciliation. Declaration of Belgian independence. Protocol of the 
five great European powers. Selection of a king. [Saxe-Coburg, Gotha.] Siege and sur- 
render of Antwerp. Prosperity of Belgium. 

VIII. Polish Revolution. 1. Disposition made of Poland by the congress of Vienna. Al- 
exander's arbitrary government of Poland.--2. The government of Poland under the emperor 
Nicholas. Character of Constantino. Effect of his barbarities. Secret societies. [Volhynia.] 
—3. Revolutionary outbreak at Warsaw, Nov. 1830. A general rising in Warsaw. The pro- 
visional government.- 4. Fruitless attempts to negotiate. Russian and Polish forces. Opening 
events of the war.— 5. Night attacks and rout of the Russians. [Bug River.] Conduct of 
Prussia and Austria.— 6. Battle of Ostrolenka. [Minsk. Ostrolenka.] Deatli of Diebitsch and 
Constantine. Conspiracy at Warsaw.— 7. Dissensions among the Poles. Fall of Warsaw and 
end of the war. Fate of the Polish generals, soldiers, and nobility. Result. 

III. ENGLISH REFORMS. FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. REVOLUTIONS IN THE 

GERMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUSTRIA. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. 

HUNGARIAN WAR. USURPATION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 

I. English Reforms. 1. England from 1820 to 1830. Reforms obtained in 1823 and 1829. 
Resignation of the Wellington ministry, 1830. The whig ministrj' of Earl Grey. Lord Russell's 
Reform bill :— lost in the Commons.— 2. Dissolution of Parliament. Result of the new elections. 
Second defeat of the Reform bill, 183 1 . Popular resentment, and riots. [Derby. Bristol.]— 3. 



CiiAP. VI.] NINETEENTH CENT U II Y. 505 

Third defeatof the Reform bill, 1832. Resignation of ministers. Causes of their reinstatement. 
Final passage of the Reform bill.— 4. Important eflects of this measure. More intimate union 
with France. Prosperity of England under the change.— 5. Accession of Victoria to tlie throne, 
1837 ; and her marriage to Prince Albert, 1840. 

II. French Revolution of 1848. 1, Most important events of the reign of Louis Phillippe. 
— 2. Lafayette's instrumentality in his election. Anomalous and difficult position of Louis 
Phillippe. The temporary success of his government. — 3. Discontent of Vae middle and lower 
classes.— 4. The political reform banquets of 1847-8. The contemplated banquet for the 22d 
of Feb., 1848,— forbidden by the government. Measures taken by the opposition deputies. — 5. 
Announcement of the postponement of the banquet. Popular assemblage dispersed. Dis- 
turbances in the evening of the 22d.— 6. Renewed disturbances on the morning of the 23d. 
Demands of the National Guards acceded to. The people fired upon in the evening. — 7. 
A Tliiers' ministry organized. Proclamation on the morning of the 24th, and withdrawal 
of the troops. Disarming of the troops, abdication of the king, pillage of the jtalace, and flight 
of the king and ministers. — 8. Meeting of the Chamber of Deputies. Adoption of a Republic. 
— 9. M. Lamartine. General adhesion to the new government. — 10. The Moderate and the 
Red Republicans. Their respective principles. Demands upon the government. — 11. Ani- 
mosities of the two sections of the Republican party. Popular demonstrations. The April 
elections. The executive committee. — 12. Insurrection of the 15th of May. Its suppression. 
— 13. Precautionary measures of the government. Insurrection of June — suppressed after a 
bloody contest. — 14. Cavaignac chief executive. Treatment of the insurgent prisoners. Adop- 
tion, and character of, the new constitution. 

III. Revolutions in the German States, Prussia, and Austria. 1. Effects of the recent 
French Revolution upon the German Stales. Events in Baden.— 2. Events at Cologne, 
Munich, and Ilesse-Cassel. [Hanau. Hesse-Cassel.]— 3. Convention at Heidelberg. [Heidel- 
berg.] Action of the Frankfort diet. Course of Frederick William of Prussia. Saxony and 
Hanover. RcA^olt of Sleswick and Holstein. 

4. Excitement in Vienna, caused by the Revolution in Paris. [Galicia. Metternich.] — 5. 
Opening of the diet of Lower Austria. Commotions and bloodshed. — 6. Concessions of the 
government, and triumph of the people.— 7. Efforts of government to fulfil its promises. Dif- 
ficulties that intervened. Rule of the mob. Flight, and return, of the emperor, [fnspruck.j 
8. Demands of the Bohemians. A Slavic Congress. Bombardment of Prague, and termination 
of the Bohemian Revolution. — 9. Hungary at this period. Revolt of the Croats, who are sup- 
ported by Austria. [Hungary. Croatia.] Second Revolution in Vienna. Flight of the em- 
peror. [Olmutz.] Siege and surrender of Vienna. — 10. The Hungarian army during the siege, 
—II. Character of the second Revolution in Vienna. Reaction in the popular mind, and 
triumph of despotism. 

IV. Revolutions in Italy. I. Austrian influence and interference in Italian affairs since 
the fall of Napoleon. [Modena. Parma. Papal-States.] — 2. Election of Pope Pius IX. itt 
1846. His character and acts. Austria interferes. [Ferrara.] A general rising against Aus- 
tria. Withdrawal of Austrian troops. [Bologna. Lucca.] — 3. Austrian force in Lombardy. 
General insurrection throughout Austrian Italy. Charles Albert of Sardinia espouses tlic 
cause of Italian nationality. Final triumph of the Austrians under Radelsky. An armistice. — 
4. Renewal of the war — second triumph of Radetsky, and abdication of Charles Albert. — 5. 
Blockade and fall of Venice. — 6. Revohition in Na])les. [Kingdom of Naples.] War with, 
and final reduction of, the Sicilians. [Palermo.]— 7. Difficulties of the pope.— 8. His growing 
unpopularity and flight. [Gaeta.] The Roman Republic instituted. — 9. The pope's appeal for 
aid — how responded to. — 10. Reduction of Rome by the French army. Return of the pope. 
The change in him and his people. 

V. Hungarian WAR. 1. Immediate cause of the second Revolution in Vienna. Hungarian 
and Croatian war. — 2. Historical account of the .Magyars. [Theiss.] Character of the Hun- 
garian government. — 3. Repeated acknowledgments of its independence. — 4. Ferdinand the 
Fifth. His means of influence, — and Austrian control over the government of the Hungarians. 
The two parties in Hungary. — 5. Concessions to Hungary in March, 1848. [Pesth.] — 6. Anarchy 
and misrule in Hungary.— 7. A more alarming danger to Ilimgary. Her population. RevoU 
of Croatia. [Slavonians.] The Serbian revolt. [Serbs.] Actual beginning of the war on the 
part of Hungary. [Carlowilz. Peterwardein. The Banat.] Austria openly supports the 
Croatian rebellion.— 8. \cliou of tlie Ilungariaa Diet. Defeat of Jellachich near PcslhC — 9. 



506 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Character, and situation, of Ferdinand, who abdicates the throne. The Hungarian Diet refusea 
to acknowledge his successor. Failure of the attempt at negotiations. — 10. Defection of several 
of tlfe Hungarian leaders, — but general adherence to Kossuth and the country. Want of arms — 
but partially supplied. Hungarian force.— II. Austrian plan of invasion. Austrians enter 
Pesth, Jan. 1849, and the government retires to Debreczin. Concentration of the Hungarian 
forces. General Bem. [Debreczin. Comorn. Eperies. Bukovvina.] — 12. Loss of Esseck. 
Bern is at first repulsed. His final successes. [Esseck. Wallachs. Hermanstadt. Cronstadt. 
Teraeswar.] — 13. Derabinski. Operations in the valley of the Theiss. [Szegedin. Maros. Ka- 
polna, &c.] Battles of Kapolna. — 14. Gorgey. His victories over the Auslrians. [Tapiobieske. 
GodoUo. Waitzen. Nagy Sarlo.] Siege of Buda. [Buda.]— 15. Constitution for the Austrian 
empire. Declaration of Hungarian independence. Kossuth governor of Hungary. — 16. Aus- 
trian and Russian preparations for a second campaign. The Hungarian forces. — 17. Invasion 
of Hungary in June. [Presburg. Bartfeld.] — 18. Gradual concentration of the enemies of 
Hungary. [Hegyes.] Barbarities of Hayuau. — 19. Gor^ey's retreat to Arad. [Onod. Tokay. 
Arad.] Want of concert among the Hungarian generals.— 20. Retreat of Dembinski. Defeat 
at Temeswar, and breaking up of the southern Hungarian army. Gorgey's fiiilure to support 
Dembinski. His suspected fidelity. Supreme power conferred upon him. — 21 . Gorgey's treason, 
and surrender of his army, Aug. 13th, 1849.— 22. Previous successes of the Hungarians in the 
vicinity of Comorn. [Raab.] Surrender of Comorn, Sept. 29th. — 23. Fate of Kossuth, Bem, 
Dembinski, &c. [Widdin.] — 24. The closing tragedy of the Hungarian war. Fate of the in- 
ferior officers, Hungarian soldiers, &c. 

VI. UsuRP.\TioN OF Louis Napoleon. 1. Election of a chief magistrate in France in 1848. 
The six candidates. Cavuignac, and Louis Napoleon. Election of the latter. Inauguration 
and oath of office.— 2. History of Louis Napoleon down to the period of his election. [Fortress 
of Ham.] — 3. His declaration of principles. Jealousy of him. Parties in the Assembly. — 4. 
Want of confidence between the President and Assembly. Acts of the Assembly.— 5. Pro- 
posed revision of the constitution. — 6. President's message of November 1851. Increasing ani- 
mosity of the Assembly against the President.— 7. An approaching crisis,— how anticipated by 
Louis Napoleon. Circumstances of the coup iTetat of December 2d. — 8. Meeting, and arrest, 
of members of the Assembly. The public press. Decree for an election. Insurrection of De- 
cember 4lh, suppressed by the military.— 9. Result of the elections of December. The new 
constitution. Louis Napoleon President for ten years. Assumes the title of emperor. 



I. THE PERIOD OF PEACE: 1815—1820. 

I. On t^^.e day of tlie signing of the treaty of Paris, another was 
concluded between Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Eng- 
^ "^815^^ land, designed as a measure of security for the allied 
powers, and declaring that Napoleon Bonaparte and his 
family should he forever excluded from the throne of France. On 
the same day a third treaty, of notorious celebrity, called " The 
Holy Alliance,'' was subscribed by the emperors of Russia and 
Austria, and the king of Prussia, who bound themselves, " in con- 
formity with the principles of Holy Scripture, — to lend each other 
every aid, assistance, and succor, on every occasion." This treaty 
was ere long acceded to by nearly all the continental powers as parties 
to the compact, although the ruling prince of England declined sign- 
ing it, on the ground that the English constitution prevented him 
from becoming a party to any convention that was not countersigned 
by a responsible minister. 



Chap. TL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 507 

2. The terms of the Holy Alliance were drawn by the young 
Russian emperor Alexander, whose enthusiastic benevolence prompt- 
ed him to devise a plan of a common international law that should 
substitute the peaceful reign of the Gospel in place of the rude em- 
pire of the sword. But the law of the Holy Alliance, although be- 
neficent in its origin, was to be interpreted by absolute monarchs : as 
it was evident that its only active principle would be the maintenance 
of despotic power, under the mask of piety and religion, it was justly 
regarded with dread and jealousy by the liberal party throughout 
Europe, and was in reality made a convenient pretext for enforcing 
the doctrine of passive obedience, and resisting all efforts for the es- 
tablishment of constitutional freedom. 

3. The treaties of 1815 both closed the ascendency of imperial 
France in Europe, and terminated, for a time at least, the revolution- 
ary movements in the civilized world. Twenty-five years of war had 
exhausted the treasures of Europe, and covered her soil with mourn- 
ing, and never before had the sweets of repose been so eagerly cov- 
eted by rulers and people. But although the nations had tired of 
the mingled horrors and glories of military strife, the excitement oc- 
casioned by the revolutionary wars continued, and, for want of other 
channels of action, seized hold of the social passions of the masses : 
military gave place to democratic ambition — the old ante-revolution- 
ary contest between despotism and democracy revived, — to be fol- 
lowed by other revolutions still, until one or the other principle shall 
triumph — until, in the language of Napoleon, Europe shall become 
either Cossack or Republican. 

4. In England, the social contest, wearing a milder aspect than 
on the continent, displayed itself in the legal strife for government 
relief and parliamentary reforms. During a long and 
expensive war, England had enjoyed extraordinary do- England 
mestic prosperity : since the year 1792 her population 

had increased more than four millions, notwithstanding the absorp- 
tion of five hundred thousand men in the army and navy : the ex- 
ports, imports, and tonnage, of the kingdom, had more than doubled 
since the war began ; and although the public debt had grown to an 
enormous amount, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, had 
gone on increasing, during the whole struggle, in an unparalleled ratio. 

5. It was confidently anticipated, not only by the ardent and en- 
thusiastic, but also by the prudent and sagacious, that when the 
enormous expenses of the war establishment should be removed, and 



508 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

peace had thrown open the ports of all Europe to the enterprise of 
British merchants, the tide of national prosperity would rise still 
higher and higher ; but never were hopes more cruelly disappointed. 
Exports, to an enormous amount, being suddenly thrown into countries 
impoverished by war, glutted the foreign market ; and the consign- 
ments, in most instances, were sold for little more than half their 
original cost — spreading ruin throughout the commercial interests. 
Moreover, the opening of the European and American ports for the 
the supplies of grain, glutted the home market of England ; and 
prices of every species of agricultural produce soon fell to two-thirds 
of what they had been during the closing scenes of the war : a season 
of unusual scarcity, in 1816, threatening a famine, increased the 
general distress, which, like a pall of gloom, enshrouded the whole 
kingdom. 

6. Other causes, in addition to those originating in the mere 
transition from a state of war to one of peace, doubtless contributed 
to the general revulsion in business, among which may be mentioned, 
as the most prominent, the greatly diminished supply of the precious 
metals from South America,^- owing to the unsettled state of that 
country then occupied with revolutionary wars, and the rapid con- 
traction of the paper currency of Great Britain, in anticipation of a 
speedy return to specie payments. But the English Radical or Re- 
publican party attributed the difficulties to excessive taxation and the 
measures of a corrupt government ; and a vehement outcry was 
raised for parliamentary reform, and retrenchment in all branches of 
public expenditure. 

7. The EnglisrJi government, wiser than the continental powers, 
has ever had the prudence to make seasonable concessions to 
reasonable popular demands, before the spark of discontent has been 
blown into the blaze of revolution ; and now, after a spirited contest, 
a heavy property tax, that had been patiently submitted to as a 
necessary war measure, was repealed, amid the universal transports 
of the people : the remission of other taxes followed, and, in one 
year, a reduction of thirty-five million pounds sterling was made from 
the national expenditure, although strongly opposed by the ministry. 
Still the distress continued ; the j^opular feeling against the govern- 
ment increased; numerous secret political societies were organized 
among the disaffected ; and early in the following year (1817) a com- 

a. From 1815 to 1810 the amount of gold and silver coin produced from the mines of South 
America i'ell from about seven million pounds sterling to five and a half million pounds. 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY, 509 

mittee of parliament reported that an extensive conspiracy existed, 
chiefly in the great towns and manufacturing districts, for the over- 
throw of the monarchy, and the establishment of a republic in its stead. 

8. In consequence of the information, greatly exaggerated, which 
had been communicated to the committee, ministers were enabled to 
carry through parliament bills for suspending the privileges of the 
writ of habeas corpus, and for suppressing tumultuous meetings, de- 
bating societies, and all unlawful organizations. Armed with ex- 
tensive powers, government took the most active measures for putting 
a stop to the threatened insurrection : a few mobs were suppressed ; 
many persons were arrested on a charge of high treason ; and several 
were convicted, and suffered death. In 1819 a large and peaceable 
meeting at Manchester,- assembled to discuss the question of parlia- 
mentary reforms, was charged by the military, and many lives in- 
humanly sacrificed ; but all attempts in parliament for an inquiry 
into the conduct of the Manchester magistrates, under whose orders 
the military had acted, were defeated. Although the people still 
justly complained of grievous burdens of taxation, and unequal rep- 
resentation in parliament, those evils were not so oppressive as to in- 
duce them to incur the hazards of revolution ; and government, 
having yielded to the point where danger was past, was sufficiently 
strong to carry all its important measures. 

9. An event of general interest that occurred soon after the close 
of the European war was the merited chastisement of the piratical 
State of Algiers. During a long period the Barbary^ powers had 
carried on a piratical warfare against those nations that were not suf- 
ficiently powerful to prevent or punish their depredations. From 
the year 1795 to 1812 the United States of America had preserved 
peace with Algiers by the payment of an annual tribute ; but in the 
latter year the Dey, believing that the war with England would render 
the Americans unable to protect their commerce in the Mediterranean, 
commenced a piractical warfare against all American vessels that fell 
in the way of his cruisers. In the month of June 1815, an Ameri- 
can squadron, under the command of Commodore Decatur, being sent 

1. Manchester^ the great centre of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain, andthe greatest 
manufacturing town in the world, is situated on the Irwell, an affluent of the Mersey, thirty-one 
miles east from Liverpool. {Map No. XVI.) 

2. Barhary is the name that has been usually given, in modern times, to that portion of 
northern Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, and lying between the western frontier of 
Egypt and the Atlantic. The name Barbary is derived from that of its ancient inhabitants, the 
Berbers. 



510 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

to the Mediterranean, after capturing several Algerine vessels, com- 
pelled Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, to release all American prisoners 
in their possession, pay large sums of money, and relinquish all future 
claims to tribute from the United States. 

1 0. In the following year, the continued piracies of the Algerines 
upon some of the smaller European States that claimed the protec- 
tion of England, induced the British government to send out a pow- 
erful squadron, with directions to obtain from the Dey unqualified 
abolition of Christian slavery, or, in ease of refusal, to destroy, if 
possible, the nest of pirates whose tolerance had so long been a dis- 
grace to Christendom. On the 27th of August the British fleet, 
commanded by Lord Exmouth, appeared before Algiers, whose for- 
tifications, admirably constructed, and of the hardest stone, were de- 
fended by nearl}^ five hundred cannon and forty thousand men. No 
answer being returned to the demands of the British government, 
the attack was commenced in the afternoon of the same day ; and 
although the defence was most spirited, by ten in the evening all the 
fortifications that defended the approaches by sea were totally 
ruined, while the shot and shells' had carried destruction and death 
throughout the city. On the following morning the Dey submitted, 
agreeing to abolish Christian slavery forever, and immediately re- 
storing twelve hundred captives to their country and friends. The 
total number liberated at Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, was more than 
three thousand. 

11. The humiliation of the piratical Barbary powers by the Ameri- 
cans in 1815, and the battle of Algiers in the following year, were 
events highly important to the general interests of humanity, not 
only from their immediate results, but as the beginning of the de- 
cisive ascendency of the Christian over the Mohammedan world. 
Former triumphs of the cross over the crescent had averted subju- 
gation from Christendom, or had been obliterated by subsequent dis- 
asters ; but since the battle of Algiers, the followers of the prophet 
have seen, and mournfully submitted to, their destiny ; Algiers has 
since become a province of a Christian State ; and the Ottoman em- 
pire is only saved from dissolution by the jealousies of its Christian 
neighbors. 

12. The situation of France at the time of the second restoration 

of Louis XVIII., with a vast foreign army quartered 

III FRANCE. 

upon her people, an empty treasury, and an unsettled 
government, was gloomy in the extreme. With a vacillation peculiar 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 511 

to the French people, public opinion had already turned against the 
Bonapartists and the Republicans, who were regarded as the authors 
of all the evils under which the nation suiFered ; and the king soon 
found himself seriously embarrassed by the ardor of his own friends. 
Punishment of the Revolutionists, and a restoration of the powers 
and privileges of the nobility and the clergy, were violently demand- 
ed by the Royalists; but, fortunately, the extreme danger of any 
violent reactionary movement was too manifest to permit the king 
to intrust the government to the ultraists of his own party. 

13. Had it not been for the presence of a large foreign army, 
France might again have been doomed to the horrors of civil war : 
as it was, the party feuds of centuries between the Roman Catholics 
and Protestants, revived by the imbittered feelings of the moment, 
brolie forth anew in the south of France : the Royalists demanded 
vengeance against the Republicans ; and political zeal combined with 
religious enthusiasm to arouse the worst passions of the people, and 
incited to numerous massacres, which recalled the memory of the 
bloodiest period of the Revolution. Although the king denounced 
these atrocities, and called upon the magistrates to bring the guilty 
parties to justice, the latter were screened from arrest, or, if taken, 
were acquitted in face of the clearest evidence of their guilt. 

1 4. The Chamber of Deputies, at its first meeting, in the autumn 
of 1815, urgently demanded of the king that those "who had im- 
perilled alike the throne and the nation should be delivered over to 
the just severity of the tribunals :" stringent laws were passed punish- 
ing seditious words ; courts martial were established for trying politi- 
cal offences ; and when the king, after the execution of Ney, La- 
bedoyere, and a few others, proposed a general amnesty, the chamber 
had prepared, and demanded the proscription of, a list of twelve hun- 
dred additional victims ; and in order to secure the amnesty the king 
was compelled, against his inclination for moderate measures, to assent 
to an amendment providing for the perpetual banishment of all those 
who had voted for the death of his brother, the unfortunate Louis 
XVI. France presented the singular spectacle of an ascendant Roy- 
alist party arrayed in opposition to the king, who, in order to check 
their undue zeal, was compelled to ally himself with the Republi- 
cans, the natural enemies of his cause. 

15. Although the ultra Royalists controlled the action of the leg- 
islature, there was still a powerful party of ultra Revolutionists 
among the people ; and it was the policy of the king and his ministry 



-512 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

'W guard against the danger of the ascendency of either, by conform- 
ing to the general principles which the Revolution had impressed 
upon the nation. As the legislative body continually thwarted the 
government, it was determined to alter the composition of the repre- 
sentatives by a coup cVetat^ or arbitrary ordinance of the king ; and 
accordingly, on the 5th of September, 1816, a royal ordinance was 
published, which dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, arbitrarily di- 
minished the number of representatives, and secured the election of 
a majority of those who were attached to the measures of the minis- 
terial party. 

16. The royal ordinance of September, although conferring the 
right of suffrage upon only one hundred thousand out of thirty mil- 
lions of the population of France, was far more democratic than ac- 
corded with the wishes of the Royalists, who feared that the new 
representatives, chosen mostly from the middle classes of landed pro- 
prietors, would incline towards a republican form of government, under 
which they might most effectually secure their own rights, and divide 
among themselves the honors and emoluments of office.* And such, 
indeed, was the result. The electoral law proclaimed by the king, 
and the subsequent creation ^ of a large body of peers taken from 
the Liberals and Bonapartists, soon placed the control of govern- 
ment in the hands of the democratic party, which was naturally an- 
tagonistic to the power which had given it influence ; but the Royal- 
ists, who at the restoration had seemed the ruling party, were unwilling 
to resign the control of the government ; and the struggle continued 
to increase in violence between them and the Liberals, until it finally 
resulted in the Revolution of 1830, and the overthrow of the mon- 
archy. 

IT. REVOLUTIONS IN SPAIN, PORTUGAL, NAPLES, PIEDMONT, 
GREECE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND POLAND: 

1820— 183L 

I. Spain. 1. During the period of general peace, from 1815 to 
1 820, Spain, under the rule of the restored Ferdinand, was in a state 
of constant political agitation; and in 1820 an insurrection of the 
soldiery compelled the king to restore to his subjects the free and 
almost republican constitution of 1812. The Republicans, however, 

u. By the ordinance of Sept. 5th, 1816, the right of suffrage was established on the basis of 
the payment of three hundred francs direct taxes to llie govermneut. 
b. March 5th, 1819. 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 513 

who thus obtained the direction of the government, showed little 
wisdom or moderation ; and a large party, directed by the monks 
and friars, and supported by the lower ranks of the populace, was 
formed for the restoration of the monarchy. Several of the European 
powers, in a congress held at Verona, adopted a resolution to sup- 
port the authority of the king in opposition to the constitution which 
he had granted ; but England stood aloof, and to France was in- 
trusted the execution of the odious measure of suppressing democratic 
principles in Spain. 

2. Accordingly, early in the year 1823, a French army of a hun- 
dred thousand men, under the command of the Duke d'Angouleme, 
entered Spain : the patriots made but a feeble resistance, and the 
king was soon restored to absolute authority, on the ruins of the con- 
stitution. The remainder of the reign of Ferdinand, who died in 
1833, was characterized by the complete suppression of all liberal 
principles in politics and religion, and the revival of the ancient 
abuses which had so long disgraced the Spanish monarchy. England 
and the United States severely censured the interference of France 
in the domestic affairs of the Spanish nation, and showed their sym- 
pathy with the cause of the oppressed by recognizing, at as early a 
period as possible, the independence of the Spanish South American 
republics, which had recently renounced their allegiance to Spain. 

II. Portugal. 1. The adjoining kingdom of Portugal was a 
prey to similar commotions. The emigration of the king and court 
to Brazil during the peninsular war, has already been mentioned, 
(p. 488.) The nation being dissatisfied with the continued residence 
of the court in Brazil, which in fact made Portugal a dependency 
of the latter, and desiring some fundamental changes in the frame 
of government, at length in August 1820 a revolution broke out, and 
a free constitution was soon after established, having for its basis the 
abolition of privileges, the legal equality of all classes, the freedom 
of the press, and the formation of a representative body in the na- 
tional legislature. This constitution, being violently opposed by the 
clergy and privileged classes, who formed what was called the apos- 
tolical party, at the head of whom was Don Miguel, the king's 
younger son, was suppressed in 1823, and a state of anarchy con- 
tinued until the death of the king in 1826, when the crown fell to 
Don Pedro, emperor of Brazil. 

2. Don Pedro, however, resigned his right in favor of his infant 
daughter Donna Maria, at the same time granting to Portugal a 

33 



§14 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

constitutional charter, and appointing his brother Don Miguel regent. 
Although the latter took an oath of fidelity to the charter, he soon 
began openly to aspire to the throne, and by means of an artful 
priesthood caused himself, in 1829, to be proclaimed sovereign of 
Portugal, while the charter was denounced as inconsistent with the 
purity of the Roman faith. The friends of the charter, aided by 
Don Pedro, who repaired to Europe to assert the rights of his 
daughter, organized a resistance, and after a sanguinary struggle, 
during which they were once driven into exile, they obtained the 
promise of support from France, Spain, and England, who in 1834 
entered into a convention to expel the younger brother from the Por- 
tuguese territories. Soon after, Don Miguel gave up his pretensions, 
and the young queen was placed upon the throne, since which time 
the country has remained comparatively tranquil. 

III. Naples. 1. The kingdom of Naples, embracing Sicily and 
southern Italy, nearly identical with the Magna Graecia of antiquity, 
had been erected into an independent monarchy in 1734, under the 
Infante Don Carlos of Spain, who took the name of Charles III. It 
continued under a succession of tyrannical or imbecile rulers of the 
Bourbon dynasty till 1798 : the Italian portion of the kingdom was 
then overrun by the French, who held it from 1803 till 1815, when 
it reverted to its former sovereign Ferdinand, who, during the French 
rule, had maintained his court in the Sicilian part of his kingdom. 

2. Under the rule of Ferdinand, popular education was wholly 
neglected ; the roads, bridges, and other public works which the 
French had either planned or executed, were left unfinished, or fell 
into decay ; and yet the people were oppressively taxed, and a repre- 
sentative government was denied them. At length, on the 2d of 
July, 1820, the growing discontents of the people broke out in open 
insurrection, and a remonstrance was sent to the government de- 
manding a representative constitution. One based on the Spanish 
constitution of 1812 was immediately granted, and the Neapolitan 
parliament was opened on the 1st of October following; but on the 
same month a convention of the three crowned heads who formed the 
Holy Alliance, attended by ministers from most of the other Eu- 
ropean powers, met at Troppau;^ and it was there resolved by the 

1. Troppau, the capital of Austrian Silesia, is situated on the' Oppa, a tributary of the Oder, 
thirty-seven miles north-east from Olmutz. From 20th October to 20th November, 1820, it was 
the place of meeting of the diplomatic congress, which afterwards removed to Laybach. (Map 
No. XVII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 515 

sovereigns of Kussia, Austria, and Prussia, to put down the Neapoli- 
tan constitution by force of arms. 

3. France approved the measure, but the British cabinet remained 
neutral. The old king Ferdinand, ^'^no had been invited to visit the 
sovereigns at Laybach,' was easily convinced that his promises had 
been extorted, and therefore were not binding ; and Austrian troops 
immediately prepared to execute the resolutions of the congress, 
while the aid of a Russian army was promised, if necessary. An 
Austrian force of forty-three thousand men entered the Neapolitan 
territory, heralded by a proclamation from Ferdinand, calling his 
subjects to receive the invaders as friends. A few slight skirmishes 
took place, but the country was quickly overrun ; foreign troops gar- 
risoned the fortresses ; the king's promise of complete amnesty was 
forgotten ; and courts martial and executions closed the brief drama 
of the Neapolitan Revolution. 

IV. Piedmont. 1. Piedmont is the principal province of the Sar- 
dinian monarchy ;' and the latter, first recognized as a separate king 
dom by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, comprises the whole of north- 
ern Italy west of the Tessino,^ together with the island of Sardinia 
in the Mediterranean. The Piedmontese, never considering them- 
selves properly as Italians, had been proud of their annexation to 
France under the rule of Napoleon ; and on the restoration of the 
monarchy they were the first of the Sardinian people to exhibit the 
liberal principles of the French Revolutionists, and to complain of 
the oppressive exactions imposed upon them by the government. 

2. Scarcely had the Neapolitan Revolution been suppressed, when 
an insurrection, beginning with the military, broke out in Piedmont. 
On the 10th of March, 1821, several regiments of troops simulta- 
neously mutinied ; and it is believed that the malcontents were se- 
cretly favored by Charles Albert, a kinsman of the royal family, who 

1. Laybac/i, the capital of Austrian Illyria, (which latter embraces the duchies of Cariiilhia 
and Carniola,) is situated on a navigable stream, a tributary of the Save, fifty-four miles north- 
east from Trieste. It is celebrated in diplomatic history for the congress held here in 182J. 
(Map No. XVir.) 

2. Sardinia (Kingdom of) embraces the territory of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, and tlio 
adjacent duchy of Savoy on the west side of the Alps, together with the island of Sardinia. 
Savoy, which was governed by its own counls as early as the tenth century, was the nucleus 
of this monarchy. Genoa was annexed to the Sardinian crown at the peace of J815. {J^laj) 
No. XVII.) 

3. The Tessino or Ticino (anciently Ticinus, see p. 158,) having its sources in Mount St. 
Gothard, flows southward, and after traversing the Lago Maggiore in its entire length, and 
forming the boundary between Lombardy and Piedmont, ftdls into the Po at Pavia. (.¥«;j No, 
XVII.) 



5f6 MODERN HISTORY. [PartII. 

afterwards became king of Sardinia. The seizure of the citadel of 
Turin, on the I2th, was followed, on the 13th, by the abdication of 
the king Victor Emanuel, in favor of his absent brother Charles 
Felix, and the appointment of Prince Albert as regent. While ef- 
forts were made to organize a government, an Austrian army was 
assembled in Lombardy to put down the Revolution : the new king 
repudiated the acts of the regent, who threw himself on the Aus- 
trians for protection : on the 8th of April the insurgents were over- 
thrown in battle ; and on the 10th the combined royal and Austrian 
troops were in possession of the whole country. In Piedmont, as in 
Naples, Austrian interference, ever exerted on the side of tyranny, 
suppressed every germ of constitutional freedom. 

V. The Greek Revolution. 1. In the year 1481, Greece, tlie 
early and favored seat of art, science, and literature, was conquered 
by the Turks, after a sanguinary contest of more than forty years. 
The Venetians, however, were not disposed to allow its new masters 
quiet possession of the country ; and during the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries it was the theatre of obstinate wars between them 
and the Turks, which continued till 1718, when the Turks were con- 
firmed in their conquest by treaty. Although the Turks and G reeks 
never became one nation, and the relation of conquerors and con- 
quered never ceased, yet the Turkish rule was quietly 
submitted to until 1821, when, according to previous ar- 
rangements, on the 7th of March Alexander Ypsilanti, a Greek, and 
then a major-general in the Russian army, proclaimed, from Moldavia, 
the independence of Greece, at the same time assuring his country 
men of tlie aid of Russia in the approaching contest. But the 
Russian emperor declined intervention ; the Porte took the most 
rigorous measures against the Greeks, and called upon all Mussulmen 
to arm against the rebels for the protection of Islamism :' the wildest 
fanaticism raged in Constantinople, where hundreds of the resident 
Greeks were remorselessly murdered ; and in Moldavia the bloody 
struggle was terminated with the annihilation of the patriot army, 
and the flight of Ypsilanti to Trieste," where the Austrian govern- 
ment seized and imprisoned him. 

1. Islamism, from the Arabic word salama, " to be free, safe, or devoted to God," is the term 
which the followers of Mahomet apply to their religion. The term " Mohammedism" is as 
objectionable as the term "popery." 

2. Trieste, a seaport town of Austrian Ulyria, is near the north-eastern extremity of the 
Adriatic, seventy-three miles north-east from Venice. During the middle ages Trieste was the 
capital of a small republic. (JJap No. XVII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 517 

2. In southern Grreece no cruelties could quench the fire of liberty ; 
and sixteen days after the proclamation of Ypsilanti the Revolution 
of the Morea began at Suda, a large village in the northern part of 
Achaia, where eighty Turks were made prisoners. The revolution 
rapidly spread over the Morea and the islands of the JEgeau : the 
ancient names were revived ; and on the 6th of April the Messenian 
senate, assembled at Kalamatia/ proclaimed that Greece had shaken 
off the Turkish yoke to save the Christian faith, and restore the 
ancient character of the country. From that time the Greeks found 
friends wherever free principles were cherished ; and from England 
and the United States large contributions of clothing and provisions 
were forwarded to relieve the sufferings inflicted by the wanton 
atrocities of the Turks. 

3. The rage of the Turks was particularly directed against the 
Greek clergy, many of whom were murdered, among them the aged 
patriarchs of Constantinople and Adrianople ; and several hundred 
of the Greek churches were torn down, while the Christian ambassa 
dors of neutral powers in vain remonstrated with the Turkish divan. 
These excesses, and the massacre of those whom the Turks took in 
arms, showed to the Greeks that the struggle in which they had en- 
gaged was one of life and death ; and it is not surprising, therefore, 
that the Greeks often retaliated when the power was in their hands. 

4. During the summer months the Turks committed great depre- 
dations among the Greek towns on the coast of Asia Minor : the in- 
habitants of the island of Candia, who had taken no part in the insur- 
rection, were disarmed, and the archbishops, and many of the priests, 
executed : in Cyprus, where also there had been no appearances of 
insurrection, the Greeks were disarmed, and their archbishop and 
other prelates murdered. The most barbarous atrocities were also 
committed at Rhodes, and other islands of the Grecian Archipelago, 
where the villages were burned, and the country desolated. But 
when in August the Greeks captured the strong Turkish fortresses 
of Monembasia'^ and Navarino,^ and in October that of Tripolitza,' 

1. Kalamalia is near Ibe head of the Messenian Gulf, now called the Gulf of Kaltnatia. lis 
ancient name was Calavim. It is east of the Pamisus ri'ver — now the Pamitza. {Map No. I.) 

2. The fortress of Monemiasia is in the vicinity of the ancient Epidaurus, on the eastern coast 
of Laconia, forty-three miles south-east from Sparta. {Map No. I.) 

3. JVavarino is on the western coast of Messenia, near the ancient Pylus. It stands on the 
Bouth side of a fine serai-circular bay of the same name, eut off from the sea by the long narrow 
island of Sphagia— anciently Sphacteria. {Map No. T.) 

4. Tripolitza, a town of modern origin, and, under the Turks, the capital of the Morea, is 
fibout five miles north of Tecrea,'m the ancient Arcadia. Its name Tripolitza, "the three 



518 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

they took a terrible revenge upon their enemies ; and in Tripolitza 
alone eight thousand Turks were put to death. 

5. On the 5th and 6th of September the Greek general Ulysses 
defeated, near the pass of Thermopylae, a large Turkish army which 
had advanced from Macedonia ; but on the other hand the peninsula 
of Cassandra^ was taken by the Turks, when three thousand Greeks 
were put to the sword ; women and children were carried into slave- 
ry, and the flourishing peninsula converted into a desert waste. The 
Athenian Acropolis was garrisoned by the Turks, and the inhabitants 
of Athens fled to Salamis for safety ; but in general, throughout all 
southern Greece, the Turks were driven from the country districts, 
and compelled to shut themselves up in the cities. 

6. The year 1822 opened with the assembling of the first Greek 

congress at Epidaurus,"'' the proclaiming of a provisional 
constitution on the 13th of January, and the issuing, 
on the 27th, of a manifesto which announced the union of the Greeks 
under an independent federative government, under the presidency 
of Alexander Mavrocordato. But the Greeks, long kept in bondage, 
and unaccustomed to exercise the rights of freemen, were unable at 
once to establish a wise and firm government : they often quarreled 
among themselves ; and their captain, or captains, who had exercised 
an independent authority under the government of the Turks, could 
seldom be brought to submit to the control of the central govern- 
ment. The few men of intelligence and liberal views among them, 
and the few foreign officers who entered their service, had a difficult 
task to perform ; and all that enabled them to continue the struggle 
was the wretchedly undisciplined state of the Turkish armies. 

7. The principal military events of 1822 were the destruction of 
Scio^ by the Turks, tlie defeat of the Turks in the Morea, the successes 
of the Greek fire-ships, and the surrender of Napoli di E,omania,'' 



cities,''' is supposed to be derived from tlie cireumslance of its having been constructed of llio 
ruins of the three cities Tegoa, Mantinea, and Pallanlium. (Map No. I.) 

1. The peninsula of Cassandra is the same as tlie ancient Pellcne, at the eastern entrance of 
the Thermaic Gulf, now Culf of Salonica. (Maps Nos. I. and X.) 

2. Epidaurus. See Monembasia. 

3. Scio (anciently Chios) is a celebrated and beautiful island, about thirtj'-two miles in length, 
near the Lydiau coast of Asia Minor. In antiquity, and in modern limes down to the dreaditil 
catastrophe of 1822, the island, although for the most part mountainous and rugged, was cul- 
tivated with the greatest care and assiduity. It was called the "paradise of modern Greece." 
Scio aspired to the honor of being the native country of the first and greatest of poets, — 

"Tlie blind old man of Ohio's rocky isle." 

4. JVupoli di Romania (the ancient JVauplia, the port of Argos) is situated on a point of land 
at the head of the Argollc Gulf, or Gulf of Nauplia. (Map No. 1.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 519 

to the Greeks. The Greek population of the flourishmg and de- 
fenceless island of Scio had declined every invitation to engage in 
the Kevolution, until a Greek fleet appeared on the coast in March 
1822, when the peasants arose in arms against their Turkish masters, 
attacked the citadel, and put the Turkish garrison to the sword. To 
punish the Sciots, on the 1 1th of April five thousand of the most bar- 
barous of the Turkish Asiatic troojDS were landed on the island, 
which vfas given up to indiscriminate pillage and massacre ; and in a 
few days tJie paradise of Scio was changed into a scene of desolation. 
According to the Turkish accounts, twenty thousand individuals were 
put to the sword, and a still greater number, mostly women and 
children, sold into slavery. Soon after, one hundred and fifty villages 
in southern Macedonia experienced the fate of Scio ; and the pacha 
of Salonica' boasted that he had destroyed, in one day, fifteen hun- 
dred women and children 

8. In the meantime the Turks had made extensive jDreparations to 
conquer western Greece — the ancient Epirus, Acarnania, and j^tolia, 
and relieve the Turkish garrisons in the Morea ; but after some suc- 
cesses they experienced a series of defeats so disastrous, that, during 
the month of August alone, more than twenty thousand Turks per- 
ished by the sword. In June, soon after the destruction of Scio, 
forty-seven Greeks rowed a number of fire-ships into the midst of the 
fleet of the enemy, and blew up the vessel of the Turkish admiral, 
with more than two thousand men on board. The admiral himself, 
mortally wounded, was carried on shore, where he died. On the 10th 
of November, seventeen daring sailors conducted two fire-ships into 
the midst of the Turkish fleet oif the island of Tenedos,*^ and fastened 
one of them to the admiral's ship, and the other to that of the second 
in command. The former narrowly escaped ; the latter blew up with 
eighteen hundred men on board. Several of the Turkish vessels 
were wrecked on the Asiatic coast ; others were captured ; and out 
of a fleet of thirty-five vessels that had sailed for the relief of the 



1. Salonica, (anciently Thessalonica, at the head of the Thormaic Gulf in Macedonia,) is now 
a celebrated city and seaport of European Turkey, at the north-eastern extremity of the 
fkilf of Salonica. The town was known to Herodotus, Thucydides, and ^Jschines, by the 
name of 7'kervia, but Cassandra changed its name to that of iiis wife Thessalonica, the 
daughter of Philip, and sister of Alexander the Great. In Thessalonica the Apostle Paul made 
many converts, to whom he adressed tlie Epistle to the Thessalonians. (Jlaps Nos. I. and X.) 

2. Tenedos is a small but celebrated island of Turkey, in the J^gean Sea, (Archipelago,) 
fifteen miles south-west from the mouth of the Dardanelles, and about five miles west from 
the Asiatic coast. According to Virgil, (^Eueid 11.) it was the place to which the Grecian fleet 
made the feigned retreat before the sack of Troy. {Map No. III.) 



520 MODERN HISTORY. [Pakt IL 

Morea, only eighteen returned, much injured, to the Dardanelles. 
Finally, to crown the successes of the year, on the 12th of December 
the strong Turkish fortress of Napoli di Romania was carried by 
assault. 

9. During the year 1 823 the war was carried on with results gen- 

erally favorable to the Greeks. In Thessaly and Epirus 
there was a suspension of arms : on the 22d of March 
the Greek fleet gained a victory over an Egyptian flotilla : daring 
expeditions were made to the coast of Asia Minor : a Turkish army 
of twenty-five thousand men, that attempted to invade the Morea by 
way of the Corinthian Isthmus, was repulsed by the brave Suliot 
leader Marco Botzaris, who fell in the moment of victory ; and the 
Turks failed in repeated attacks on Missolonghi.^ In the summer 
of this year the illustrious poet, Lord Byron, arrived in Greece, and 
took an active part in aid of Greek independence ; but he died at 
Missolonghi on the 19th of April following. 

10. The Turks commenced the campaign of 1824, while dissensions 

prevailed among the Greek captains, by seizing Negro - 
pont, subduing Candia, and reducing the small but 
strongly-fortified rocky island of Ipsara, in which latter place the 
heroic Greeks blew up their last fort, after two thousand of the enemy 
had entered it, and thus perished with their conquerors. The Turk- 
ish fleet next made an attempt on Samos, but was driven away in 
terror by the skill and boldness of the Greek fire-ships. A large 
Egyptian fleet, sent to attack the Morea, was frustrated in all its de- 
signs, and the campaign terminated gloriously to the Greeks. 

1 1. The campaign of 1825 was opened by the landing, in the Morea, 

of an Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pacha, son of the 
viceroy of Egypt, whom the sultan had induced to engage 
in the war. Navarino soon fell mto his power ; nor was his course 
arrested till he had carried desolation as far as Argos. In tlio 
meantime Missolonghi was closely besieged by a combined land and 
naval Turkish force, which, on the 2d of August, after a contest of 
several days, sufi"ered a disastrous defeat, with the loss of nine thou- 
sand men. But Missolonghi was again besieged, for the fourth time, 
the siege being conducted by Ibrahim Pacha alone, who had an army 
of twenty-five thousand men, trained mostly by French officers. Af- 
ter repelling numerous assaults, and enduring the extremities of 

1. Missolonghi is on the coast of ^tolia, ubout ten miles west of the ancient Chalcis. 
(J\Iap No. I.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 521 

famine, Missolonghi at length fell, on the 22d of April, 1826, when 
eighteen hundred of the garrison cut their way through 
the enemy, and reached Salona' and Athens in safety. 
Many of the inhabitants escaped to the mountains ; large numbers 
were captured in their flight ; and those who remained in the city, 
about one thousand in number, mostly old men, women and children, 
blew themselves up in the mines that had been prepared for the 
purpose. Five thousand women and children were made slaves, and 
more than three thousand ears were sent as a precious trophy to 
Constantinople. 

12. Ibrahim Pacha was now in possession of a large part of 
southern Greece, and most of the islands of the Archipelago or 
j^gean Sea ; and the foundation of an Egyptian military and slave- 
holding State seemed to be laid in Europe. This danger, connected 
with the noble defence and sufferings of Missolonghi, roused the atten- 
tion of the European governments and people : numerous philanthropic 

societies were formed to aid the suffering Greeks ; and, 

VII 1827 
finally, on the 6th of July, 1827, a treaty was concluded 

at London between England, Russia, and France, for the pacification 

of Greece — stipulating that the Greeks should govern themselves, but 

that they should pay tribute to the Porte. 

13. To enforce this treaty, in the summer of 1827 a combined Eng- 
lish, French, and Russian squadron, sailed to the Grecian Archipel- 
ago ; but the Turkish sultan haughtily rejected the intervention of 
the three powers, and the troops of Ibrahim Pacha continued their 
devastations in the Morea. On the 20th of October the allied squad- 
ron entered the harbor of Navarino, where the Turkish- Egyptian fleet 
lay at anchor ; and a sanguinary battle followed, in which the allies 
nearly destroyed the fleet of the enemy. The Porte, enraged by the 
result, detained the French ships at Constantinople, stopped all com- 
munication with the allied powers, and prepared for war. 

14. In the following year the French cabinet, in connection with 
England, sent an army to the Morea : Russia declared war for vio- 
lations of treaties, and depredations upon her commerce ; . 
and on the 7th of May a Russian army of one hundred 

and fifteen thousand men, under command of Count Wittgenstein, 
crossed the Pruth,^ and by the second of July had taken seven for 

1. Salona is the same as the ancient Amphissa, in Locris. See ^'Imphissa, p. 96. {Map No 1.) 

2. The river Pruth, forming the boundary between the Russian province of Bessarabia and 
the Turkish province of Moldavia, enters the Danube about sixty miles from its mouth. {Maps 
No3. X. and XVII.) 



-if22 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

tresses from the Turks. In August a convention was concluded 
with Ibrahim Pacha, who agreed to evacuate the Morea with his 
troops, and set his Grreek prisoners at liberty. In the meantime the 
Greeks continued the war, drove the Turks from the country north 
of the Corinthian Gulf, and, towards the close of the year, fitted out 
a great number of privateers to prey upon the commerce of the 
Turks in the Mediterranean. In consequence of these measures the 
sultan banished from Constantinople all the Greeks and Armenians 
not born in the city, amounting to more than twenty-five thousand 
persons. 

15. In the month of January, 1829, the sultan received a protocol 
from the three allied powers, declaring that they took 

the Morea and the Cyc' lades^ under their protection, and 
that the entry of any military force into Greece would be regarded as 
an attack upon themselves. The danger of open war with France 
and England, together with the successes and alarming advance of 
the Russians, now commanded by Marshal Diebitsch, who, by the 
close of July, had crossed the Balkan^ mountains and reached the 
Black Sea, and on the 20th of August, took Adrianople, within one 
hundred and thirty miles of the Turkish capital, induced the sultan 
to listen to overtures of peace. On the 14th of September the 
peace of Adrianople was signed by Turkey and Russia, by which the 
sultan recognized the independence of Greece, granted to Russia 
considerable commercial advantages, and guaranteed to pay the ex- 
penses of the Russian war. 

16. The provisional government of Greece, which had been or- 
ganized during the Revolution, was agitated by discontents and jeal- 
ousies ; for some time the country remained in an unsettled condition, 
and the president, Count Capo d'Istria, was assassinated in October 
1831. The allied powers, having previously determined to erect 
Greece into a monarchy, first offered the crown to Prince Leopold of 
Saxe-Coburg, (since king of Belgium,) who declined it on account 
of the unwillingness of the Greeks to receive him, and their dissatis- 
faction with the boundaries prescribed by the allied powers. Finally, 

1. The Cyc' lades is a name given bj' the ancient Greeks to that large cluster of islands in the 
^gean Sea lying east of southern Greece. {Map No. III.) 

2. The Balkan mountains are the same as the ancient HoRmus, which formed the northern 
boundary of Thrace, separating it from IMiesia. (See Map No. IX.) The Balkan range extends 
from the Black Sea westward a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, dividing the 
Turkish provinces of Bulgaria and Roimielia, and the waters that flow into the Danube on 
the north from those that flow into the iSlaritza on the south. (Map No. X.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 523 

the crown was conferred on Otlio, a Bavarian prince, who arrived at 
Nauplia in 1833. 

VI. The French Revolution OF 1830. 1. On the death of Louis 
XVIII., in 1824, the crown of France fell to his brother Charles X„ 
who commenced his reign bj a declaration of his intentions of con- 
firming the constitutional charter that had been granted the French 
people at the time of the first restoration. But the new king, bit- 
terly opposed to the principles of the Revolution, and governed by 
the counsels of bigoted priests, labored to build up an absolute mon- 
archy, with a privileged nobility and clergy for its support ; while, 
on the other hand, the people, persuaded that a plot was formed to 
deprive them of their constitutional privileges, talked of open resist- 
ance to the arbitrary demands of the court. A ministry, which the 
popular party had forced upon the king, was suddenly dismissed, and 
in August, 1829, an ultra-royalist ministry was appointed, at the head 
of which was Prince Polignac, one of the old royalists, and an early 
adherent of the Bourbons. 

2. At the opening of the Chambers in March 1830, the speech 
from the throne plainly announced the determination of the king to 
overcome, by force, any obstacles that might be interposed in the 
way of his government, concluding with a threat of resuming the 
concessions made by the charter. As soon as this speech was made 
public the funds fell ; the ministers had a decided majority opposed to 
them in the Chamber of Deputies, and a spirited reply was returned, 
declaring that " a concurrence did not exist between the views of the 
government and the wishes of the people ; that the administration 
was actuated by a distrust of the nation ; and that the nation, on the 
other hand, was agitated with apprehensions which threatened its 
prosperity and repose." The king then prorogued the chambers, 
and on the 17th of May a royal ordinance declared them dissolved, 
and ordered new elections, — measures that produced the greatest ex- 
citement throughout France. 

3. In the meantime the king and his ministers, hoping to facilitate 
their projects, and overcome their unpopularity by gratifying the 
taste of the French people for military glory, declared war against 
Algiers, the Dey having refused to pay long-standing claims of French 
citizens, and having insulted the honor of France by striking the 
French consul when the latter was paying him a visit of ceremony. 
A fleet of ninety-seven vessels, carrying more than forty thousand 
soldiers, embarked at Toulon on the 1 0th of May, — on the 14th of 



524 Modern HISTORY. [Partil 

June effected a landing on the African coast, — and on the 5th of 
July compelled Algiers to capitulate, after a feeble resistance. The 
Dej was allowed to retire unmolested to Italy ; and his vast treasures 
fell into the hands of the conquerors. 

4. The success of the French arms in Africa occasioned great ex- 
ultation in France, but did nothing towards allaying the excited state 
of public feeling against a detested ministry. The elections, ordered 
to be held in June and the early part of July, resulted in a large in- 
crease of opposition members ; and the ministerial party was left in 
a miserable minority. The infatuated ministry, however, instead of 
withdrawing, madly resolved to set the voice of the nation at defiance, 
and even to subvert the constitutional privileges granted by the 
charter. They therefore induced the king to publish, on the morn- 
ing of the 26th of July, three royal ordinances, — the first dissolving 
the newly-elected Chamber of Deputies — the second changing the 
law of elections, sweeping off three-fourths of the former constituency, 
and nearly extinguishing the representative system — and the third, 
suspending the liberty of the press. In the ministerial report, pub- 
lished at the same time with these ordinances, the ministers argue, in 
favor of the latter measure, that " At all epochs, the periodical press 
has only been, and from its nature must ever be, an instrument of 
disorder and sedition" ! 

5. In defiance of these ordinances the conductors of the liberal 
journals determined to publish their papers ; and on the evening of 
the same day, the 26th, they published an address to their country- 
men, declaring that " the government had stripped itself of the charac- 
ter of law, and was no longer entitled to their obedience," — language 
that would probably have exposed them to the penalties of treason 
if the contest had terminated differently. It was late in the day be- 
fore intelligence of the arbitrary measures of government was gen- 
erally circulated through Paris : then crowds began to assemble in 
the streets : cries of " down with the ministry," and " the charter 
forever," were heard : the fearless harangued the people ; and during 
the night the lamps in several of the streets were demolished, and 
the windows of the hotel of Polignac broken. So little had the 
king anticipated any popular outbreak, that he passed the day of the 
26th in the amusements of the chase ; and it appears that the infatu- 
ated ministr}' liad not even dreamed of a Revolution as the conse- 
quence of their obnoxious measures. 

6. On the morning of the 27th several of the journalists printed 



Chap. VI.] l^INETEENTH CENTURY. 525 

and distributed their papers ; but their doors were soon closed, and 
their presses broken by the police. This morning the king appointed 
Marshal Marmont commander-in-chief of the forces in Paris ; but it 
was not till four in the afternoon that orders were given to put the 
troops under arms, when they were marched to diiferent stations, 
to aid the police, and overawe the people. The latter then be- 
gan to arm : some skirmishing occurred with the troops : during the 
night the lamps throughout the city were demolished ; and, under 
the cover of darkness, man}^ of the streets were barricaded with 
paving-stones torn up for the purpose. At the close of the day Mar- 
mont had informed the king that tranquillity was restored ; and 
therefore no additional troops were sent for ; nor were the great 
depots of arms and ammunition guarded. 

7. At an early hour on the morning of the 28th, armed multitudes 
appeared in the steets ; and numbers of the National Guard, which 
the king had previously disbanded, appeared in their uniform among 
the throng, and with them the famous tri-colored flag, so dear to the 
hearts of all Frenchmen. To the sm'prise of Marmont, the king, 
and the ministry, the riot, which, on the previous evening, they had 
thought suppressed, had assumed the formidable aspect of a Revolu- 
tion. By nine o'clock the flag of the people waved on the pinnacles 
of Notre Dame, and at eleven it surmounted the central tower 
of the Hotel de Ville, which was afterwards, however, retaken by 
the royal troops. Marmont showed great indecision in his move- 
ments : his columns were everywhere assailed with musketry from 
the barricades, from the windows of houses, from the corners of the 
streets, and from the narrow alleys and passages which abound in 
Paris ; and paving-stones and other missiles were showered upon 
them from the house-tops. The royal guards were disheartened : 
the troops of the line showed great reluctance to fire upon the citi- 
zens ; and the 28th closed with the withdrawal of the royal forces 
from every position in which they had attempted to establish them- 
selves during the day. 

8. The contest was renewed early on the morning of the third day, 
when several distinguished military characters appeared as leaders of 
the people, and among them General Lafayette, who took command 
of the National Guard ; but while the issue was yet doubtful, several 
regiments of the line went over to the insurgents, Avho, thus strength- 
ened and encouraged, rushed upon the Louvre and the Tuilleries, 
and speedily overcame the troops stationed there. So suddden was 



526 MODERN HISTORY. [Part I L 

the assault that Marmont himself with difficulty escaped, leaving be- 
hind him more than twenty thousand dollars of the public funds. 
About half past three P. M. the last of the military posts in Paris 
surrendered ; the royal troops who escaped having in the meantime 
retreated to St. Cloud, where were the king and ministry, now in con- 
sternation for their own safety. The Revolution was speedily com- 
pleted by the installation of a provisional government : on the 31st 
Louis Phillippe, Duke of Orleans,!'- the most popular of the royal 
family, accepted the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom : 
when the Chambers met he was elected to the throne ; and on the 
9th of August took the oath to support the constitutional charter. 

9. The results of the revolutionary movement in France, and the 
overthrow of the elder branch of the Bourbons, in defiance of the 
guarantees of the congress of Vienna, spread alarm among the sov- 
ereigns of continental Europe ; and the emperor of Russia went so 
far as not only to hesitate about acknowledging the title of the citi- 
zen king of France, but, as is believed, was preparing to support the 
claims of the exiled Charles X., when the popular triumph in Eng- 
land, in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, by converting a 
former ally into an enemy, raised up obstacles that arrested his 
measures. Charles X., after having abdicated the throne, was per- 
mitted to retire unmolested from France ; but his ministers, attempt- 
ing to escape, were arrested, and afterwards brought to trial, when 
three of them, including Polignac, were declared guilty of treason, 
and sentenced to imprisonment for life. At the end of six 3'ears they 
were released from confinement, — indignation towards them having 
given place to pity. 

VII. Belgium. 1. The French Revolution of 1830 produced a 
powerful sensation throughout Europe, and aroused an insurrection- 
ary spirit wherever the people complained of real or fancied wrongs, 
while the continental sovereigns, on the other hand, alarmed for the 
safety of their thrones, looked with jealousy on every political move- 
ment that originated with the people, and prepared to suppress, by 
military force, the incipient efibrts of rebellion. The Belgians, who 
had been compelled by the congress of Vienna to unite with the Hol- 
landers in forming the kingdom of the Netherlands, having long been 
goaded by unjust laws, and treated rather as vassals, than as subjects, 

a. Louis Phillippe, Duke of Valois at his birth, Duke of Chartres on the death of his grand- 
father in 1785, and Duke of Orleans on the death of his father in 1794, was the son of Louis 
Phillippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans,— better known under his Revolutionary title of Philip 
Egalite. 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 527 

of the Dutch king, judging the period favorable for dissolving their 
union with a people foreign to them in language, manners, and in- 
terests, arose in insurrection at Brussels, in the latter part of August, 
and, after a contest of four days' duration, drove the Dutch authori- 
ties and garrison from the city. 

2. In vain were efforts made by the Prince of Orange to reconcile 
the conflicting demands of the Dutch and the Belgians, and again 
unite the two people under one government. The proposals of the 
prince were disavowed by his father the king of Holland, and equally 
rejected b}^ the Belgians ; and on the 4th of October the latter made a 
formal declaration of their independence. Soon after, the representa- 
tives of the five great powers, — France, Great Britain, Prussia, Eussia, 
and Austria, assembled at London, agreed to a protocol in favor of 
an armistice, and directed that hostilities should cease between 
the Dutch and Belgians. The Belgians, having decided upon a 
constitutional monarchy, first offered the crown to the Duke of 
Nemours, the second son of Louis Phillippe; but the latter de- 
clined the proffered honor on behalf of his son ; after which the 
Belgian congress elected Leopold, prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,^ 
for their king. As the Dutch continued to hold the city of Antwerp, 
contrar}^ to the determination of the five great powers, a French 
army of sixty-five thousand men, under Marshal Gerard, entered Bel- 
gium in November 1832, and, after encountering an obstinate defence, 
compelled the surrender of the place on the 24th of December. 
Since her separation from Holland, Belgium has increased rapidly in 
every industrial pursuit and social improvement. 

VIII. Polish Revolution. I. By the decrees of the congress of 
Vienna, most of that part of Poland which Napoleon had erected 
into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and conferred upon his ally the 
king of Saxony, (see p. 487,) was reestablished as an independent 
kingdom, to be united to the crown of Russia, but with a separate 
constitution and administration; and on the 20th of June, 1815, the 
Russian emperor Alexander w^as proclaimed king of Poland. The 
mild character of Alexander had inspired the Poles with hopes that 
he would protect them in the enjoyment of their liberties ; but his 

1. Saxe-Cohurg-Gotha is a duchy of centnil Germany, consisling of the two principalities, 
Saxe-Coburg, and Gotha ;— the former on the south side of tlie Thuringiau forest, and the latter 
on the north side. Area of the whole, seven hundred and ninety-seven square miles: popula- 
tion one hundred and forty thousand : chief towns, Coburg, and Gotha. The government is 
a constitutional monarchy. The house of Saxe-Coburg has intermarried with the principal 
reigning families of Europe. {Map No. XVII.) 



528 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

fine professions soon began to prove delusive : ere long none but 
Russians held the chief places of government : the article of the 
constitution establishing liberty of the press was nullified : publicity 
of debate in the Polish diet was abolished ; and numerous state 
prosecutions imbittered the feelings of the Poles against their 
tyrants. 

2. On the accession of Nicholas to the throne of Russia, in De- 
cember 1 825, although the lieutenancy of Poland was intrusted to a 
Pole, yet the real power was invested in the king's brother, the 
Archduke Constantine, who held the appointment of commander-in- 
chief of the army. Constantine proved to be the worst of tyrants — 
a second Sejanus — delighting in every species of judicial iniquity 
and ministerial cruelty. The barbarities of Constantine, sanctioned 
by Nicholas, revived the old spirit of Polish freedom and nationality; 
and the successful examples of France and Belgium roused the Poles 
again to action. Secret societies, "organized for the express purpose 
of securing the liberty of Poland, and uniting again under one gov- 
ernment those portions that had been torn asunder and despoiled by 
the rapacity of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, existed not only in Po- 
land proper and Lithuania, but also in Volhynia^ and Podolia, and 
even in the old provinces of the Ukraine, which, it might be sup- 
posed, had long since lost all recollections of Polish glory. 

3. The fear of detection and arrest on the part of some members 
of one of these societies, led to the first outbreak at Warsaw, on the 
evening of the 29tli of November, 1830. The students of a military 
school at Warsaw, one hundred and eighty in number, first attempted 
to seize Constantine at his quarters, two miles from the city ; but 
during the struggle with his attendants, of whom the Russian general 
G-endre, a man infamous for his crimes, was killed, the duke escaped 
to his guards, who, being attacked in a position from which retreat 
was difficult, lost three hundred of their number, when the students 
returned to the city, liberated every State prisoner, and were joined 
by the school of the engineers, and the students of the university. A 
party entered the only two theatres open, calling out, " Women, 
home — men, to arms !" The arsenal was next forced, and in one 
hour and a half from the first movement, forty thousand men were 
in arms. Constantine fell back to the frontier. Chlopicki was first 
appointed by the provisional government commander-in-chief of the 

1 . Volhynia is a province of European Prussia, formerly comprised in the kingdom of Poland, 
lying south of Grodno and Minsk. (Jtffl;) No. XVII.) 



ChapVL] nineteenth CENTURY. 529 

army of Poland, and afterwards was made dictator ; but he soon re- 
signed, and Adam Czartoriski was appointed president. 

4. After two months' delay in fruitless attempts to negotiate with 
the emperor Nicholas, who refused all terms but absolute submission, 
the inevitable conflict began — Russia having already assembled an 
army of two hundred thousand men under the command of Field 
Marshal Diebitsch, the hero of the Turkish war, while the Poles had 
only fifty thousand men equipped for the fight. On the 5th of Feb- 
ruary, 1831, the Russians crossed the Polish frontier : on the 18th 
their advanced posts were within ten miles of Warsaw ; and on the 
20th a general action was brought on, which resulted in the Poles 
retiring in good order from the field of battle. On the 25th forty 
thousand Poles, under Prince Radzvil, withstood the shock of more 
than one hundred thousand of the enemy ; and at the close of the 
day ten thousand of the Russians lay dead on the field, and several 
thousand prisoners were taken. 

5. Skryznecki, being now appointed commander-in-chief of the 
Polish forces, concerted several night attacks for the evening of the 
31st, which resulted in the total rout of twenty thousand Russians, 
and the capture of a vast quantity of muskets, cannon and ammuni- 
tion. These successes were so rapidly followed up, that before the 
end of April the Russians were driven either across the Bug^ into 
their own territories, or northward into the Prussian dominions. The 
conduct of Prussia, in affording the Russians a secure retreat on 
neutral territor3^, and furnishing them with abundant supplies, while 
in all similar cases the Poles were detained as prisoners, destroyed 
all advantages of Polish valor. Austria, likewise, permitted the 
Russians to pass over neutral ground to outflank the Poles, but de- 
tained the latter as prisoners if they once set foot on Austrian terri- 
tory. Thus Russia and Austria interpreted and enforced the princi- 
ples of the " Holy Alliance." 

6. While the Poles were stationed at Minsk,' Skryznecki, unitiDg 
all his forces in that vicinity, to the number of twenty thousand, sud- 
denly crossed the Bug and forced his way to Ostrolenka,^ a distance 

1. The Bm^, a large tributary of the Vistula, forms a great part of the eastern boundary of 
the present Poland. Another river of Ihe same name, running south-east through Podolia and 
Kherson, falls into the estuary of the Dnieper, east of Odessa. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. Minsk is a small town of Poland, about twenty-five miles south-east of Warsaw. A lai*ge 
city of the same name is the capital of the Russian province of Minsk, formerly embraced in 
Poland. (Map No. XVJI.) 

3. Ostrolcnka is a small town sixty-eight miles north-east from Warsaw. (Map No. XVil.) 

34 



630 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of eighty miles, where, on the 26th of May, he engaged in battle 
with sixty thousand Russians. The combat was terrific — no quarter 
was asked, and none was given. The Poles, led by the heroic Gen- 
eral Bem, lost one-fourth of their number. The loss of the Russians 
was less in proportion, but they had three generals killed on the field. 
In the following month, both the Russian commander-in-chief, Mar- 
shal Diebitsch, and the Archduke Constantino, died suddenly. About 
the same time a conspiracy for setting at liberty all the Russian 
prisoners, thirteen thousand in number, was detected at Warsaw. 

7. Dissensions among the Polish chiefs, and the want of an ener- 
getic government, soon produced their natural consequences of di- 
vided counsels, and disunited efibrts in the field ; and by the 6th of 
September, during the strife of factions at Warsaw, a Russian army 
of one hundred thousand men, supported by three hundred pieces of 
cannon, had assembled for the storming of the city. Although de- 
fended v/ith heroism, after two days' fighting, in which the Russians 
had twenty thousand slain, and the Poles about half that number, 
Warsaw surrendered to the Russian general Paske witch — the main 
body of the Polish army, and the most distinguished citizens, retiring 
from the city, and afterwards dispersing, when no farther hopes re- 
mained of serving their ill-fated country. Large numbers crossed 
the frontiers and went into voluntary exile in other lands : most of 
the Polish generals, who surrendered under an amnesty, were sent to 
distant parts of the Russian empire ; and the soldiers, and Polish 
nobility, were consigned by thousands to the dungeons and mines of 
Siberia. The subjugation of Poland is complete : her nationality 
seems extinguished forever. 

III. ENGLISH REFORMS. FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848. REVO- 
LUTIONS IN THE GERMAN STATES, PRUSSIA, AND AUS- 
TRIA. REVOLUTIONS IN ITALY. HUNGARIAN 
WAR. USURPATION OF LOUIS NAPOLEON. 

I. English Reforms. 1. From the death of George the Third, 
in 1820, to the death of George the Fourth, in June 1830, England 
was agitated by a continued struggle between the two great parties 
which divided the nation — the whigs and the tories. Civil disabili- 
ties of all kinds were loudly objected to, and political abuses denounc- 
ed with a plainness and force never before known in England. In 
1828 the reform party obtained the abolition of the test act, whicli, 
though nearly obsolete in point of fiict, still imposed nominal disabili- 
ties on Protestant dissenters ; and in 1829 the barriers which had 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 531 

so long excluded Roman Catholics from the legislature were removed. 
At the time of the accession of William IV., in 1830, a tory ministry, 
headed by the Duke of Wellington, was in power ; but the decided 
sentiment of the nation in favor of reform in all the branches of gov- 
ernment, occasioned its resignation in November of the same year. A 
whig ministry, pledged for reform, with Earl G-rey at its head, then 
came into power ; and on the first of March of the following year 
Lord John Russell brought forward in parliament the ministerial 
plan for reforming the representation of England, Scotland, and 
Ireland, which, if adopted, would extend the right of suffrage to half 
a million additional voters, disfranchise fifty-six of the so-called rot- 
ten or decayed boroughs, and more nearly equalize representation 
throughout the kingdom. After a long but animated debate the bill 
passed a second reading in the House of Commons by a majority of 
only one, but was lost on the third reading, the vote being two hun- 
dred and ninety-one for the bill, and two hundred and ninety-nine 
against it. 

2. By advice of the ministers, the king hastily dissolved parlia- 
ment, and ordered new elections for the purpose of better ascertain- 
ing the sense of, the people. The elections took place amid great 
excitement, and the advocates of reform were returned by nearly all 
the large constituencies. The new parliament was opened on the 
14th of June, 1831. The reform bill, being again introduced, passed 
the commons by a majority of one hundred and thirteen, but was re- 
jected by the lords, whose numbers remained unchanged, by a ma- 
jority of forty-one. The rejection of the bill by the lords led to 
strong manifestations of popular resentment against the nobility : 
serious riots occurred at Nottingham and Derby ;^ and at Bristol^ 
many public buildings, and an immense amount of private property, 
were destroyed ; ninety persons were killed or wounded ; five of the 
rioters were afterwards executed, and many were sentenced to trans- 
portation. 

3. On the 12th of December Lord John Russell a third time in- 
troduced a reform bill, similar to the former two ; and on the 23d 
of March, 1832, it passed the Commons by a majority of one hundred 
and sixteen, but was defeated in the House of Lords by a majority 

1. Derhij is a large town on the Derwent, one hundred and ten miles north-west from London. 

2. Bristol is a large and important city and seaport of England, at the confluence of the 
Avon and the Frome, eight miles fiora the entrance of the former into Bristol Channel, and 
one hundred and eight miles west from London. The city extends over six or seven distinct 
hills and their intermediate valleys, amidst a picturesque and fertile district. {Map No. XVJ.) 



532 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

of forty. The ministry now advised the king to create a sufficient 
number of peers to insure the passage of the bill ; and on his refusal 
to proceed to such extremities, all the members of the cabinet re- 
signed. Political unions were now formed throughout the country ; 
the people determined to refuse payment of taxes, and demanded 
that the ministers should be reinstated. There were no riots, but 
the people had risen in their collective strength, determined to assert 
their just rights. The king yielded to the force of public opinion, 
and Earl Grey and his colleagues were reinstated in office, with the 
assurance that, if necessary, a sufficient number of new peers should 
be created to secure the passing of the bill. When the lords were 
apprized of this fact they withdrew their opposition ; but it is worthy 
of remark that many of them, and all the bishops, left their seats on 
the final passage of the bill, which, having been rapidly hurried 
through both houses, received the royal assent on the 7tli of June. 

4. The passage of the Reform bill was, to England, a political 
revolution — none the less important because it was bloodless, and 
carried on under the protection of law. Thereby the electoral 
franchise, instead of being confined to a varied and limited class in 
the interest of the aristocracy, was extended, not to the whole citi- 
zens, as in America, but to a large body comprising the middle 
classes of society, who were thus, in efiect, vested with supreme 
power in the British empire. An entire change in the foreign policy 
of the country was the consequence. The French Revolution of 1830 
had elevated to power the middle classes of the French people also ; 
and the ceaseless rivalry of four centuries between France and Eng- 
land was, for the time, forgotten : the political interests of the two 
great powers of Western Europe were united ; and the Russian auto- 
crat, in full march to overturn the throne of the citizen-king, and 
put down republicanism in France, was arrested on the Vistula, where 
his arms found ample employment in crushing the last remnants of 
Polish nationality. As to England herself, none of the many evils 
arising from democratic ascendency in the government, so often pre- 
dicted by the aristocratic party, have yet followed in the train of re- 
form ; but, on the contrary, the peace, power, and prosperity of the 
country, have increased thereby. 

5. The reign of William IV. was terminated on the 19th of June, 
1837, when the Princess Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, 
and grand-daughter of Greorgc III., succeeded to the throne, at the 
age of eighteen years. One efi'ect of the descent of the crown to a 



Chap. YL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 533 

female was the separation from it of Hanover, after a union of more 
than a century. On the lOth of February, 1840, her majesty was 
married to Albert, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a duchy of 
central Germany. 

II. French Revolution OF 1848. 1. The most important events 
that distinguished the reign of Louis Phillippe were the abolition 
of the hereditary rights of the French peerage in October 1831; 
the siege of Antwerp, and its surrender by the Dutch, after a long 
and vigorous resistance, in 1832; an attempt of Louis Napoleon 
Bonaparte, nephew of the emperor Napoleon, to excite an insurrec- 
tion at Strasbourg, in October 1836, for the purpose of overthrowing 
the government ; the second attempt of Louis Napoleon to excite a 
revolution in France, by landing at Boulogne in August 1840, and 
his subsequent condemnation to perpetual imprisonment ; and, in 
December of the same year, the splendid pageant of the restoration 
of the remains of the emperor Napoleon to France. 

2. Louis Phillippe had been selected to fill the throne of France 
chiefly through the instrumentality of the venerable Lafayette, who, 
thinking France still unfitted for a republic, preferred for her " a 
throne surrounded by republican institutions." Placed in this 
anomalous position, Louis Phillippe, in the vain attempt to concili- 
ate both monarchists and republicans, had a difficult game to play ; 
and while he was laboring to consolidate his power, a large and influ- 
ential party, that he dare not openly denounce, was zealously striving 
to undermine it. Yet for a time, with an immense revenue, and un- 
bounded patronage, and the numerous means of political corruption 
which they placed at his disposal, the government of Louis Phillippe 
seemed to be steadily acquiring solidity, and by its success in keep- 
ing down domestic factions, and maintaining friendly relations with 
foreign powers, acquired a high reputation for wisdom and firmness. 

3. Yet amid all this seeming security, the middle and lower classes, 
disappointed in their expectations as to the results of the Revolution 
of 1830, were daily growing more and more discontented with the 
measures and policy of the government ; and it was this all-pervading 
feeling of discontent, which, without any serious aggressions on the 
part of government, and without any previous conspiracy on the part 
of the people, led to the unpremeditated Revolution of February 
1848j — a revolution which, in its completeness and importance, and 
the bloodless means by which it was accomplished, is without a par- 
allel in history. 



634 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11. 

4. During the winter of 1847-8 numerous political reform ban- 
quets were held throughout France ; and the omission of the king's 
health from the list of toasts on these occasions was a circumstance 
that added much to the jealousy with which these displays were re- 
garded by the government. The leaders of the opposition having 
announced that reform banquets would be held throughout France 
on the 22d of February, Washington's birthday; on the evening 
preceding the 22d, the administration forbade the intended meeting 
in Paris, and made extensive military preparations to suppress it if 
it were attempted, and to crush at once any attempt at insurrection. 
In the Chamber of Deputies, then in session, this arbitrary measure 
of government was warmly discussed, when the opposition members, 
consenting to give up the meeting for the morrow, concurred in the 
plan of moving an impeachment of ministers, with the expectation 
of obtaining either a change of cabinet, or a dissolution of the Cham- 
ber and a new election, which would test the sense of the nation. 

5. On the morning of the 22d the opposition papers announced 
that the banquet would be deferred, when the orders for the troops 
of the line to occupy the pla'ce of the intended meeting were counter- 
manded, and picquets only were stationed in a few places ; but no 
serious disturbance was anticipated, either by the ministry or its op- 
ponents. The announcement of the opposition journals, however, 
came too late ; and at noon a large concourse, chiefly of the working 
classes, had assembled around the church of the Madeline, where 
the procession was to have been organized. But the multitude ex- 
hibited no symptoms of disorder, and were dispersed by the munici- 
pal cavalry without any loss of life. In the evening, however, dis- 
turbances began : gunsmiths' shops were broken open ; barricades 
were formed ; lamps extinguished ; the guards were attacked ; the 
streets were filled with troops ; and appearances indicated a sangui- 
nary strife on the morrow. 

6. At an early hour on Wednesday, February 23d, crowds again 
appear^ in the streets, barricades were erected, and some skirmish- 
ing ensued, in which a few persons were killed. Numbers of the 
National Guards also made their appearance, and a portion of them, 
having declared for reform, sent their colonel to the king, to acquaint 
his majesty with their wishes. He immediately acceded to their 
requests, dismissed the Gruizot cabinet, and requested Count Mole to 
form a new ministry. This measure produced a momentary calm ; 
but the rioters continued to traverse the streets, often attacking, and 



Chap. VI.] N'INETEENTH CENTURY. 535 

sometimes disarming, the municipal guards. Between ten and eleven 
in the evening a crowd, passing the Hotel of Foreign Affairs, was 
suddenly fired upon by the troops with fatal effect. The people fled 
in consternation, but their thirst for vengeance was aroused, and the 
cry, " To arms ! Down with the assassins ! Down with Louis Phil- 
lippe ! Down with the Bourbons !" resounded throughout Paris. 

7. The attempt to establish a Mole administration having failed, 
the king sent, late at night, for M. Thiers, and intrusted to him the 
formation of a ministry that should be acceptable to the people ; and 
on the following morning, the 24th, a proclamation to the citizens of 
Paris announced that M. Thiers and Odillon Barrot had been ap- 
pointed ministers — that orders had been given the troops to cease 
firing, and retire to their quarters — that the Chamber would be dis- 
solved, and an appeal made to the people — and that General Lam- 
oriciere had been appointed commandant of the National Guards. 
The order to the troops to retire, which occasioned the resignation 
of their commander. Marshal Bugeaud, after a protest against the 
measure, was a virtual surrender, on the part of government, of the 
means of defence ; and the king and royal family soon, found them- 
selves at the mercy of an excited populace. The troops quietly al- 
lowed themselves to be disarmed by the mob, who then, to the num- 
ber of twenty thousand, and accompanied by the National Guard, 
directed their course to the Palace Royal and the Tuilleries, and 
demanded the abdication of the king. In the course of the day the 
king signed an abdication in favor of his grandson, the young Count of 
Paris ; but before this fact was generally known the armed populace 
broke into the palace, made a bonfire of the royal carriages and furni- 
ture, and after having carried the throne of the state reception room 
in triumph through the streets, burned that also. Meanwhile the 
ex-king and queen escaped to St. Cloud, whence they pursued their 
way to Versailles, and thence to Dreux, from which latter place they 
escaped in disguise to England, whither they were followed by M. 
Guizot, and other members of the late ministry. 

8. On the day of the king's abdication the Chamber of Deputies 
assembled; but, being overwhelmed by the crowd, the greatest con- 
fusion prevailed, and amid shouts of " No king ! Long live the Re- 
public," the members of a provisional government were named, and 
adopted by popular acclamation. Although a majority of the depu- 
ties seemed opposed to the establishment of a republic, and it was 
by no means certain that there was any great party out of Paris in 



.536 MODERN HISTORY. [Part IL 

its favor, every attempt to adjourn the question was the signal of re- 
newed shouts and disorder ; and amid the turbulent demonstrations 
of the Parisian populace the French Republic was adopted, and pro- 
claimed to the nation. Royalty had vanished, almost without a 
struggle, — blown away by the breath of an urban tumult, — and the 
strangest revolution of modern times was consummated. 

9. The leading member of the provisional government was M. 
Lamartine, to whom belongs the renown of saving the country from 
immediate anarchy. By his noble and fervid eloquence the passions 
of the mob were calmed ; and by his prompt and judicious measures, 
among the first of which was the declaration of the abolition of capi- 
tal punishment for political oflfences, tranquillity and confidence were 
at once restored. On the 26th the bank of France was reopened ; 
the public departments resumed their duties ; and with unparalleled 
unanimity the army, the clergy, the press, and the people, in the 
provinces as well as in Paris, immediately gave in their adhesion to 
the new Republic. 

10. The Revolution of February, 1848, was accomplished by the 
union of the two great sections of the democratic party — the Mod- 
crate and the Red Republicans. The principles advocated by the 
former were the right of self-government, civil and religious liberty, 
and universal suff"rage. The latter went much farther, and, adopting 
the leading principles of the Socialists, demanded the establishment 
of new social relations between capital and labor ; a new distribution 
of wealth, the elevation of the laboring classes at the expense of the 
wealthy, labor and food to all, by government regulations, and the 
working out, on a national scale, of the grand problem of Commun- 
ism. Believing that it is the duty and in the power of government to 
remedy most of the many evils of society, the people soon began to 
manifest the hopes which they expected the Revolution to transform 
into realities. Deputations from all trades and callings — even to 
shoe-cleaners, waiters, and nursery-maids — waited on the provisional 
government, making known their grievances, and demanding relief, 
which generally consisted of freedom from taxation, the establish- 
ment of national workshops, fewer hours of labor, higher wages, and 
more holidays. 

1 1. Although the Moderate and Red Republicans had united in 
overthrowing the monarchy, no sooner was tranquillity restored than 
the animosities of the two sections revived ; and when it was found 
that the Moderates had control of the provisional government, their 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 537 

opponents determined upon its overthrow. On several occasions, 
during the month of April, the working classes of Paris assembled 
in mass to make a demonstration of their numbers ; but the fidelity 
of the National Guard showed that the real physical power of Paris 
was still in the hands of the provisional government. The elections, 
held in April, also showed a large majority in favor of the Moderate 
party ; and on the ballot, in May, for an executive committee of the 
government, consisting of five members, not one of the avowed Red 
Republicans was elected ; and Ledru RoUin, the most violent and 
ultra of the committee, was the lowest on the list. 

12. On the 15th of May the National Assembly was surrounded 
by the populace, led by Barbes, Blanqui, Hubert, and other Com- 
munist leaders, who, after having driven the deputies from their seats, 
and assumed the functions of government, proclaimed themselves the 
national executive committee, and through Barbes, one of their num- 
ber, declared that a contribution of a thousand millions of francs 
should be levied on the rich for the benefit of the poor — that a tax 
of another thousand millions should be raised for the benefit of Po- 
land — that the National Assembly should be dissolved — and, finally, 
that the guillotine should be put in operation against the enemies of 
the country. But in the meantime the National Guard was called 
out, the rioters were soon dispersed, their leaders arrested, and the 
provisional government reinstated. 

13. Owing to the fear of another demonstration against the gov- 
ernment, the full command of all the troops in Paris was given to 
General Cavaignac, the minister of war ; and all the approaches to 
the National Assembly, and the difierent ministries, were strongly 
guarded. In June, the government, finding the burdens imposed 
on the public treasury too heavy to be borne, determined to send out 
of Paris, to the provinces, about twelve thousand of the workmen then 
unprofitably employed in the national workshops. This was the 
signal of alarm : disturbances began on the evening of the 22d : on 
the 23d the most active preparations were made by both parties for 
the coming contest, and some blood was shed at the barricades erect- 
ed by the insurgents. At one o'clock on Saturday morning, the 24th, 
General Cavaignac declared Paris in a state of siege, and the struggle 
began in earnest. From that hour until four o'clock in the afternoon, 
when the insurgents were driven from the left bank of the Seine, the 
musketry and cannonade were incessant, and Paris was a vast battle- 
field. The fight was renewed at an early hour on Sunday morning, 



538 MODERN HISTORY. TPaut IL 

and continued during most of the day, and it was not till noon on 
Monday that the struggle was terminated, by the unconditional sur- 
render of the last body of the insurgents. The number killed and 
wounded in this insurrection — by far the most terrible that has ever 
desolated Paris — will never be known ; but five thousand is probably 
not a high estimate. 

14. The exertions and success of G-eneral Cavaignac in defending 
the government procured for him a vote of thanks from the Assembly, 
and the unanimous appointment of temporary chief-executive of the na- 
tion, with the power of appointing his ministers. Many of the leaders 
of the insurrection, among them Louis Blanc and Caussidiere, fled from 
the country : a small number of those taken with arms in their hands 
were condemned to transportation ; but the great majority, after a 
short confinement, were set at liberty. The Assembly, in the mean- 
time, proceeded with its task of constructing the new Constitution, 
which was adopted on the 4th of November, 1848, by a vote of 
seven hundred and thirty-nine in its favor, and thirty in opposition. 
It declared that the French nation had adopted the republican form 
of government, with one legislative assembly, and that the executive 
power should be vested in a President, to be elected by universal 
suffrage, for a term of four years. Its principles were declared to be 
liberty, equality, and fraternity ; and the basis on which it rested, 
family, labor, property, and public order. 

III. Revolutions in the German States, Prussia, and Austria. 
1. As soon as the first accounts of the French Revolution of the 24th 
of February, 1848, reached G-ermany, the whole of that vast country 
was in a ferment : popular commotions took place in all the large 
cities ; and the people demanded a political constitution that should 
give them a share in legislation, establish the liberty of the press, 
and otherwise secure them their just rights. On the 29th of Feb- 
ruary deputations from every town in the Grand Duchy of Baden de- 
manded of the Grand Duke liberty of the press, trial by jury, the 
right of the people to bear arms, and meet in public, and a more 
popular representation at the national diet at Frankfort.^- On the 

a. The present confederation of Germany, organized in 1315, embraces nearly forty States, 
some of very small dimensions, but each possessing an independent government, and only 
liable to be called on to furnish its proportionate contingent to the array of the Confederation 
in case of danger. The emperor of Austria, being the sovereign of many territories that Avere 
considered fiefs of the German empire, is a member of the Germanic Confederation ; and his 
minister has the right of presiding in the Confederate Germanic Diet, held at Frankfort. The 
Austrian German provinces belonging to the Germanic Confederation are the arch-duchy of 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 539 

the 2d of March the Duke yielded to their demands, and appointed 
a ministry from the popular party. 

2. Similar demonstrations were made in nearly all the German 
States. At Cologne, a riot ensued, the town-house was stormed, and 
the authorities made prisoners. At Munich the people stormed the 
arsenal, and, having possessed themselves of the arms it contained, 
forced from the Bavarian king the concessions which he had refused 
to make. At Hanau,' in Hesse Cassel,'' the Elector yielded only af- 
ter a severe conflict. Within a week from the revolution in Paris 
the demands of the people had been acceded to throughout nearly all 
the south and west of Germany. 

3. In a popular convention held at Heidelberg^ on the 5th of March, 
the necessity of the reforms demanded by the people was insisted upon ; 
and at the same time the Federal Diet, sitting at Frankfort, invoked 
the different German States to take the measures necessary for a new 
constitution of the Diet, providing that the people as well as the 
rulers should be represented in it. King Frederick William of 
Prussia, after having in vain resisted a popular revolution in Berlin, 
unexpectedly to all placed himself, foremost in the ranks of the reform 
party, with the hope, it is believed, of reuniting the German States 
in one great empire, and placing himself at its head. The king of 
Saxony was compelled to grant the requests of his subjects, who had 
pronounced in ftivor of reform : the king of Hanover also yielded, 
but with much reluctance, and only when farther delay would have 
cost him his throne. On the 26th of March, Sleswick and Holstein,'- 
the two southern duchies of Denmark, which had always considered 

1. Hanau is a town of fifteen thousand inhabitants in the electorate of Hesse, eleven miles 
north-east from Frankfort. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. Hesse Cassel is an irregularly-shaped State of Germany, consisting of a central territory 
and several detached portions, the whole lying mostly north of north-western Bavaria. The 
government is a limited monarchy. Hesse Darmstadt, or the Grand Duchy of Hesse, also a 
limited monarchy, is divided by Hesse Cassel— part of it lying north and part south of the 
river Mayu. (Maj, No. XVII.) 

3. Heidelberg is a city of northern Baden, on the south side of the Neckar, forty-eight miles 
south of Frankfort. {Map No. XVII.) 

4. Sleswick and Holstein. See p. 403, and Maps Nos. XIV. and XVII. 

Austria, the kingdom of Bohemia, with Moravia and Silesia, part of Galicia, the county of 
Tyrol, and the duchies of Styria, Garinthia, and Carniola, with the town of Trieste. The other 
States of the Austrian empire have no connection with the Germanic Confederation. The king 
of Prussia, in the same manner as the Austrian emperor, is a member of the Confederation. 
The empires of Austria and Prussia, and the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and 
Wirtemburg, have, each, four votes in the German Diet ; and the smallest State, the free city 
of Hamburg, containing an area of only forty-three square miles, has one vote : the principality 
of liichtenstein, with a population of only seven thousand, has also one vote. 



^§40 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

themselves as governed by the king of Denmark in his capacity of a 
prince of Germany, long dissatisfied with the Danish rule, and irri- 
tated by the refusal of the king to accede to any of their demands, 
declared themselves independent of Denmark, and solicited admission 
into the Germanic Confederation. Being assisted by twenty thousand 
Prussian and Hanoverian volunteers, they waged a sanguinary war 
against the Danish king until foreign intervention terminated the 
contest. 

4. For some time there had been much political excitement in 
those portions of the Austrian empire embracing Galicia,- Hungary, 
and northern Italy ; but down to the period of the French Revolu- 
tion, in February 1848, the German provinces of the empire had re- 
mained tranquil. When, however, news of the downfall of Louis 
Phillippe reached Vienna, a shock was felt which vibrated through- 
out the whole Austrian empire : the public funds immediately fell 
thirty per cent. : the people, sympathizing with the Parisians, ex- 
pressed themselves upon the great subject of reform with a freedom and 
earnestness altogether foreign to their habits ; and the royal family, 
panic-stricken by the gathering tempest, were closeted in deep con- 
sultation. All the royal family and the imperial cabinet, with the 
exception of the Archduke Louis, uncle of the emperor, and the min- 
ister Metternich, were in favor of making immediate concessions to 
the people, as the only means of retaining the provinces, if not of 
preserving the throne. Metternich tendered his resignation, but was 
persuaded to retain his post only on condition of being, as hitherto, 
\mobstructed in his administration of the government. 

5. At the opening of the Diet of Lower Austria, at Vienna, on 
the 13th of March, an immense concourse of citizens, headed by the 
students of the University, marched to the hall of the Assembly, and 
there presented their petition in favor of a constitutional government, 
a responsible ministry, freedom of the press, a citizens' guard, trial 
by jury, and religious freedom. The crowd increasing, the Arch- 
duke Albert ordered the people to disperse, but, not being obeyed, 
commanded the soldiers to fire upon them. Many victims fell, and 
the greatest excitement was occasioned, which was only partially 
calmed by an order from the emperor for the military to withdraw. 

6. The city guard had in the meantime sided with the people, and 

1. Galicia and J.odomeria, now constituting a province of the Austrian empire, and lying 
north of Hungary, include those territories of Poland which have fallen to Austria in the vari- 
ous partitions of that country. {Map No. XVII.; 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 541 

opened to them tlie arsenal. Metternicli and the Archduke Albert 
resigned. On the next day, the 14th, the emperor abolished the 
censorship of the press, and assented to the formation of a National 
Guard ; and forty thousand citizens enrolled their names, and were 
furnished with arms. On the following day, the 15th, all the other 
demands of the people were complied with, and a promise given that 
a convention of deputies from each of the provinces should be as- 
sembled as speedily as possible for the purpose of framing a consti- 
tution for the empire. This announcement was received with ex- 
pressions of the greatest joy ; and the supposed dawn of Austrian 
liberty was celebrated by triumphal processions and illuminations. 

7. The first period of the Revolution terminated with the triumph 
of the people, and was followed by apparently sincere eflforts on the 
part of the government to fulfil its promises and carry out the reforms 
projected. But serious difiiculties intervened. The various races in 
the empire — Germans, Magyars, Slavonians, and Italians — were jeal- 
ous of each other, while their wants and requirements were dissimi- 
lar : the people, generally, were unprepared for free institutions ; and 
the government was undecided to what extent concessions were expe- 
dient. During the whole of April and May, the mob, guided by the 
students, who often conducted themselves disgracefully, ruled in 
Vienna : the liberty of the press degenerated into licentiousness : a 
shameful literature flooded the city : violations of law and order 
were frequent : the Reign of Terror commenced ; and finally, on the 
18th of May, the emperor, anxious for his personal safety, secretly 
left Vienna and repaired to Innspruck^ in the Tyrol. But the with- 
drawal of the emperor was not what the people wished, and they de- 
sired him, now that Metternich was removed, to lead them onward 
in the way of reform. Returning in August he strove in vain to 
resume the reins of government : the students of the university and 
the democratic clubs usurped the entire control of the city, and, in 
the name of democracy, exercised a most cruel and unmitigated des- 
potism. 

8. In the meantime the Bohemians, of Slavic origin, opposed to 
every measure tending to identify them with the German Confedera- 
tion, had demanded of the emperor a constitution that should give 
them a national existence, equivalent, in its relations with the empire, 
to that enjoyed by the Hungarians. Being refused their demands, a 

1. Innspruck, the chief city of the Tyrol, is on the river lion, two hundred and forty miles 
Bouth-west from Vienna. 



542 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet II. 

congress of the Slavic nations of the Austrian empire had assembled 
at Prague early in June, and was discussing the various plans of 
Slavic regeneration, when a vast assemblage of citizens and students 
addressed a " Storm Petition" to Prince Windischgratz, the military 
commander of the city, demanding the withdrawal of the regular 
troops, and a distribution of arms and ammunition for the use of the 
people. The petition not being granted, the people rose in open re- 
volt ; a most fearful and bloody conflict ensued within the city, which 
was also bombarded from the surrounding heights, and after almost 
an entire week of fighting, on the 17th the city capitulated. The 
Slavic congress was broken up ; the bright visions of Bohemian na- 
tionality vanished ; and subsequently the strong national feelings 
of the Slavonic population, and their hatred alike of Magyars and 
Germans, rendered them the chief supporters of the Austrian throne 
and government. 

9. At this time Hungary' was striving for a peaceable maintenance 
of her rights against Austrian encroachments ; and Croatia,^ which 
was considered as an integral part of the Hungarian monarchy, en- 
couraged by Austria, had revolted, and her troops were already on 
their march towards the Hungarian capital. Austria now openly 
supported the Croats ; and an order of the emperor, on the 5th of 
October, for some troops stationed in Vienna to march against Hun- 
gary, produced another Revolution in the Austrian capital. The 
people, sympathizing with the Hungarians, opposed the march of the 
troops : a sanguinary contest followed ; the insurgents triumphed ; 
the ministry was overthrown ; the minister of war murdered ; and 
the emperor fled to Olmutz,^ attended by the troops that remained 

1. Hungary, taken in its widest acceptation, includes, besides Hungary proper, Crojlia, 
Slavonia, the military frontier provinces, the Banat, and Transylvania. The Carpathian moun- 
tains form the boundary of Himgary on the north-east, separating it from Galicia and Lodo- 
meria. The greater part of the kingdom consists of two exlensive plains ; — the plain of Upper 
Himgary, north of Buda, traversed by the Danube from west to east ; and the great plain of 
Southern Hungary, south of Buda, watered by the Danube and its tributaries, the Drave, 
the Save, and the Theiss, with the imraerous aflluents of the latter. The whole of tlii.s 
lower plain, an exceedingly fertile territory, embracing thirty-six thousand English square 
miles, is in scarcely a single point more than one hundred feet above the level of the Danube. 
(Jl/ai> No. XVII.) 

2. Croatia, (Austrian) regarded as forming the maritime portion of Hungary, has Slavonia, 
Turkish Croatia, and Dalmatia, on the east and south-east, and the Adriatic on the south-west. 
The Drave separates it from Hungary proper. The Croats are of Slavonic stock, and speak a 
dialect which has a greater aflinity with the Polish than any other language. About the year 
1180 Croatia was incorporated with Hungary. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Olniutz, a town of Moravia, and one of the strongest fortresses of the Austrian empire, is 
on the river March, forty miles north-east of Brunn. Olmulz was taken by the Swedes in the 



Chap, VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 543 

faithful to his cause. Fortunately for the emperor, a large and faith- 
ful army in other parts of the empire enabled him soon to concentrate 
an overwhelming force around the chief seat of rebellion : Prince 
Windischgratz from the north, and Jellachich the ban or governor 
of Croatia from the south, united their forces before Vienna : on 
the morning of the 28th of October they opened their batteries on 
the city; and on the 31st, after a great destruction of life and prop- 
erty, compelled an unconditional surrender. Of sixteen hundred 
persons arrested under martial law, nine only were punished with 
death. 

10. While these events were occurring at Vienna, a Hungarian 
army of twenty or thirty thousand men, which had pursued Jellachich 
to the Austrian frontier, had remained there many days awaiting an 
invitation from the Viennese to come to their aid. At last, on the 
28th of October, the Hungarians took the responsibility of advancing 
into the Austrian territory : on the 30th and 31st they met the im- 
perialists, when some skirmishing ensued ; but the fatal blow had 
already been struck at Vienna, and the Hungarian army recrossed 
the frontiers. 

11. The second Revolution of Vienna was a riot, neither national 
nor liberal in its character, and not participated in by the other 
parts of the empire ; but its suppression, in connection with the 
scenes of anarchy which preceded it, produced an unfavorable ' effect 
on the cause of freedom throughout the whole of G-ermauy. A re- 
action had already taken place in the popular mind : peace, under 
imperial rule, began to be preferred to the unchecked excesses of the 
mob : the emperor Ferdinand, yearning for repose, resigned his 
crown in favor of' his nephew the Archduke Joseph : the government 
resumed its despotic powers ; and Austria fell back to her old posi- 
tion. In Prussia, Frederick William, imitating the Austrian empe- 
ror, and calling the army to his aid, dissolved the assembly which he 
had called for the purpose of constructing a constitution, and forgot 
all his jDromises in favor of reform and constitutional liberty. With 
Prussia and Austria against them, the smaller Gi-erman States, di- 
vided in their counsels, could accomplish nothing ; and the project 
of German unity was virtually abandoned. 

IV. Revolutions IN Italy. 1. Since the fall of Napoleon, Aus- 
trian influence has been predominant in Italy. The Congress of 

Thiiiy Years' War : it was besieged unsuccessfully by Frederick the Great in 1753 ; and Lafay- 
ette was coufuied there in 1794. {Map No. XVII.) 



544 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

Vienna assigned to Austria tlie whole Milanese and Venetian prov- 
inces, now included in Austrian Lombardy : at the same time the 
dependent thrones of Tuscany, Modena,' and Parma,^ were filled by 
members of the house of Hapsburg; and it was not long before 
Austria, in her steady adherence to the principles of despotism, had 
exacted treaties from all the princes of Italy, stipulating that no con- 
stitution should be granted to their subjects. When, in 1820, the 
Neapolitans established a constitution, Austria suppressed it by the 
force of arms, (see p. 516) : in 1821 she interfered in Piedmont; 
and in 1831 and 1832, in the Papal States^ also, for the purpose of 
suppressing all liberal tendencies, whether in the government or the 
people. 

2. The election in June 1846, of Cardinal Mastai, to fill the pon- 
tifical chair, with the appellation of Pius the Ninth, threatened the 
subversion of Austrian influence throughout a great part of Italy. 
The pope, a plain upright man, earnestly desiring to ameliorate the 
condition of his people, immediately commenced the work of reform ; 
and the liberal course pursued by him at once revived the spirit of 
nationality throughout the entire peninsula. Austria, alarmed by 
these movements, used every means to change the course of the pope ; 
and on the 19th of July, 1847, the Austrian army entered Ferrara," 
a northern frontier town of the Papal States. The occupation of 
Ferrara was the signal for a general rising against the emperor of 
Austria, not only in Rome, but also in Florence, Bologna,^ Lucca,° 
and Genoa, without regard to their distinct governments. In De- 

1. The Duchy of Modena is a State of northern Italy, having Austrian Lombardy on the 
north, the northern division of the Papal States on the east, Parma on the west, and Tuscany, 
Lucca, and the Mediterranean, on the south. Modena, the ancient J\hitina, is the capital. The 
government, an absolute monarchy, is possessed by a collateral branch of the House of Austria. 

2. The Duchy of Parma adjoins Modena on the west, and has Austrian Lombardy on the 
north, from which it is separated by the Po. Government, an absolute monarchy. Capital, 
Parma, thirty-three miles south-west from Mantua. 

3. The Papal States, or the " States of the Church," occupying a great part of central, with a 
portion of northern Italy, have Austrian Italy on the north, from which they are separated by 
the Po ; Modena, Tuscany, and the Mediterranean, on the west ; the Neapolitan dominions on 
the south ; and the Adriatic on the north-east. 

4. Ferrara, formerly an independent duchy belonging to the family of Este, and now the 
most northern city belonging to the pope, is on the west bank of the Volano, five miles south 
of the Po, and fifty-three miles south-west from Venice. 

5. Bologna, the second city in rank in the Papal States, is at the southern verge of the valley 
of the Po, twenty-five miles south-west from Ferrara. Bologna, which has always assumed the 
title of " Learned," has given birth to eight popes, nearly two hundred cardinals, and more 
than one thousand literary and scientific men and artists. 

G. Lucca, a duchy of central Italy, and, next to San Marino, the smallest of the Italian 
States, has the duchy of Modena on the north, and the Mediterranean on the south-west. 
Lucca, its capital, is eleven miles north-east of Pisa, and thirty-eight west of Florence. 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 545 

cember the Austrian army was withdrawn ; and the right of the 
States of Italy, not under Austrian rule, to choose their own forms 
of government, seemed to be conceded. 

3. The Austrian emperor, fearing for the safety of Lombardy, 
which was already in commotion, increased his forces in that prov- 
ince, until, in the beginning of March 1848, the different garrisons 
numbered a hundred thousand men. The proclamation of a republic 
in France hastened the crisis in the Austrian portion of Italy, and, 
by the unexpected tidings of the Revolution in Vienna, the climax 
was precipitated. On the 18th of March the citizens of Milan arose 
in insurrection, and after a contest of five days drove the Austrian 
troops, commanded by Marshal Radetsky, from the city. At the 
same time the Austrians were driven out of Parma and Pavia ; and 
nearly all the Venetian territory was in open insurrection. On the 
23d of March the king of Sardinia, Charles Albert, issued a procla- 
mation in favor of Italian nationality, and marched into Lombardy 
to aid in driving the Austrians beyond the Alps. The Austrian gen- 
eneral, Radetsky, a skilful and veteran commander, retreated until he 
could concentrate all his forces, when he returned to meet the Ital- 
ians, who, gradually overpowered by superior numbers, were soon 
compelled to retire ; and one by one the Austrians regained possess- 
ion of all the cities from which they had been driven. After defeat- 
ing the Sardinian king in several engagements during the latter part 
of July, on the 5th of August Radetsky was again before Milan : all 
Lombardy submitted ; an armistice was agreed upon ; and Charles 
Albert retired to his own dominions. 

4. After some attempts of England and France to mediate be- 
tween the contending parties, the armistice was terminated by Charles 
Albert on the 20th of March, 1849, on the avowed ground that its 
terms had been repeatedly violated by the Austrians ; but, in reality, 
in obedience to the clamors of his people, and as the only chance of 
saving his crown, and preventing Sardinia from becoming a republic. 
Sardinia was poorly prepared for the conflict : her forces were badly 
organized, and her officers incompetent ; while opposed to them was 
one of the most efficient and best-disciplined armies in Europe, under 
the command of an able and experienced general. At twelve o'clock 
on the 20th, the moment that the armistice expired, Radetsky entered 
Piedmont, while the Sardinians were utterly ignorant of his move- 
ments ; and by the 24th the war was at an end. Charles Albert, 
defeated in three battles, and rightly judging that more favor would 

35 



546 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

be shown his countrymen if the supreme power were in other hands, 
abdicated in favor of his son Victor Emanuel on the evening of the 
23d, and in a few hours left the country — bidding adieu not only to 
his crown, but his kingdom also. Victor Emanuel purchased peace 
by the payment of fifteen millions of dollars as indemnity for the ex- 
penses of the war. 

5. While these successes were attending the Austrian arms in 
Piedmont, an Austrian army was blockading Venice, which on the 
22d of March, 1848, had proclaimed the " Republic of Saint Mark." 
Venice held out until her provisions were exhausted, and an immense 
amount of property had been destroyed — not less than sixty thousand 
shot and shells having been thrown into the city during the last few 
days of the siege. In the last days of August 1849, Venice sur- 
rendered to Marshal Badetsky ; — and with the fall of the Republic 
of Saint Mark, Austria recovered her authority throughout all north- 
ern Italy. 

6. During this period the southern portions of the peninsula were 
far from enjoying tranquillity. The subjects of Ferdinand, king of 
Naples^ and Sicily, had risen early in 1848, and their demands for a 
constitution were acceded to ; .but the promises of the king to the 
Sicilians were broken, and Sicily revolted from his authority, and 
elected for her sovereign the Duke of Genoa, the second son of 
Charles Albert king of Sardinia. A sanguinary war between the 
Neapolitans and Sicilians followed : Messina, after two days' bom- 
bardment, fell into the hands of the Neapolitans : the Sicilians were 
defeated in a desperate battle at Catania ; Syracuse, terror stricken, 
surrendered without a blow : Palermo,^ the last stronghold of the 
islanders, fell after a short struggle ; and Ferdinand of Naples re- 
sumed his former sway as unlimited monarch of the two Sicilies. 

7. From the well-known liberal character of Pius the Ninth, and 
the manner in which his reign began, it was to be expected that, in 
the Papal States at least, liberty would find a quiet asylum. For a 
time prince and people were united in the noble cause of the political 
regeneration of Italy ; but the people soon outran the pope in the 
march of reform, and began to murmur because he lingered so far 
behind them. He granted liberty of the press, and its license 
alarmed him : he placed arms in the hands of the people, but could 

1. The Kingdom of J^avles, otherwise called the "Kingdom of the two Sicilies," nearly 
identical with the Magna Graecia of antiquity, comprises the southern portion of Italy, together 
with Sicily and the adjacent islands. 

2. Palermo : see Panormus, p. 1 17. 



Chap, yi] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 547 

not control the use of them : he named a council to assist him in the 
administration of civil affairs, but was dismayed at the cries for a 
representative assembly that should share in the government of the 
country. 

8. In the summer of 1848 symptoms of reaction began to appear: 
Pius signified to the Roman Chamber of Deputies that it was asking 
too much ; and his appointment of Rossi to the post of prime minis- 
ter exasperated the people, and diminished his own popularity. 
Rossi's avowed hostility to the democratic movement led to his 
assassination on the 15th of November, as he was proceeding to open 
the Chambers ; and eight days later the pope fled from Rome, and 
took up his residence in Gaeta,' in the territory of the king of Naples. 
On the 9th of February following, a National Assembly, elected by 
the people, proclaimed that the pope's temporal power was at an end, 
and that the form of government of the Roman States should be a 
pure democracy, with the name of" The Roman Republic." 

9. Month after month Pius remained at Gaeta, unwilling to de- 
mand foreign aid to reinstate him in his temporal sovereignty, and 
hoping that his people, acknowledging their past misconduct, would 
recall him of their own accord ; but no signs of any change in his 
favor being exhibited, he at length availed himself of the only re- 
source left him. The Roman Catholic powers of Austria, Naples, 
Spain, and France, responded to his appeal for aid : the Austrians 
entered the Papal States on the north — the Neapolitans on the 
south — a body of Spanish troops landed on the coast — and, to the 
shame of republican France, towards the close of April a French 
army, under the command of General Oudinot, was sent to southern 
Italy, under the avowed pretence of checking Austrian influence in 
that quarter, but, in reality, as the sequel proved, to restore papal 
authority on the ruins of the Roman Republic. 

1 0. The pretended " friendly and dishiterested mission" of the French 
army was resisted with a heroism worthy of the days of the early 
Roman Republic, and the first attack of the French upon the city of 
Rome resulted in their defeat ; but the assailants were reenforced, and, 
after a regular siege and bombardment, on the 30th of June, 1849, 
Rome surrendered. When the French troops entered the city thqy 
were received with silence and coldness on the part of the people ; 

1. Oaeta is a strongly-fortified seaport town, forty-one miles north-west from Naples, and 
Beveuty-two miles south-east from Rome. Cicero was put to death, by order of Antony, in the 
immediate vicinity of this town. 



548 MODERIT HISTORY. [Part II. 

the Roman guards could not be induced to pay them the customary 
salute ; the common laborers refused to engage in removing the bar- 
ricades from the streets, and the French soldiers were compelled to 
perform this task themselves. Pius the Ninth returned to Rome, 
stealthily, and in the night, a changed man. Three years of political 
experience had changed his zeal for reform into the most imbit- 
tered feelings towards all democratic institutions : political tolerance 
gave place to the most determined support of absolutism ; and the 
blessings with which his people once greeted him were changed to 
curses. 

V. Hungarian War. 1. It has been mentioned that the imme- 
diate cause of the second Revolution in Vienna, in October 1848, 
was the order to some Austrian troops stationed in Vienna to march 
to the aid of the Croats, who had revolted from Hungary. The Hun- 
garian and Croatian war soon became a war between Hungary and 
Austria. In order to understand the true character of this important 
war it will be necessary to explain the previous political connection 
between the two countries. 

2. The Magyars, from whom the present Hungarians are descend- 
ed, were a numerous and powerful Asiatic tribe, which, after over- 
running a great part of central Europe, settled in the fertile plains 
of the Danube and the Theiss,^ about the close of the ninth century. 
For a long period the government of the Magyars was an elective 
monarchy, and in the year 1526 Ferdinand of Austria, of the house 
of Hapsburg, was elected to the throne of Hungary ; and this was 
the first connection between the two countries. Seven succeeding 
Austrian princes of the same house were elected in succession by the 
Hungarian Diet, until, in the year 1687, the Diet declared the suc- 
cession to the Hungarian throne hereditary in the house of Hapsburg ; 
yet the independence of the kingdom was not affected thereby, al- 
though Hungary, with all its dependent provinces, among which was 
Croatia, became permanently attached to the Austrian dominions. 
The same as Bohemia, it acknowledged the Austrian emperor for its 
monarch ; but Austria, Hung-ary, and Bohemia, were still separate 
nations^ each governed by its own laws. 

. 3. In the year 1790 Leopold the Second, emperor of Austria, 
yielded to the demands of the Hungarian Diet, and signed a solemn 

1. The Theiss, (ancient Tibiscus,) a northern tributary of the Danube, is a large and navi- 
gable river of Hungary, flowing south through the great Hungarian plain. The area of ita 
basin ia eatimated at six thousand square miles. (Map No XVII.) 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 549 

declaration that " Hungary is a free and independent nation in her 
entire system of legislation and government," and that " all royal 
patents not issued in conjunction with the Hungarian Diet, are illegal, 
null, and void." After the peace of 1815, Francis the Second re- 
solved to govern Hungary without the aid of a Diet, in violation of 
the laws which he had sworn to support ; but after a long period of 
confusion he found it necessary, in 1825, to yield, and again summon 
the Diet. His attempt to subvert the constitution of Hungary, ter- 
minated in renewed acknowledgment of the constitutional rights of 
the Hungarians, and a reiteration of the declaratory act of 1790. 

4. Ferdinand the Fifth, who succeeded his father Francis in 1835, 
took the usual coronation oath, acknowledging the rights, liberties, 
and independence of Hungary ; and the project of incorporating 
Hungary with Austria seemed to be abandoned ; but still the empe- 
ror, by the exercise of the royal prerogative in making appointments 
to ofl&ce, could command a majority in the House of the Magnates, 
and, by the influence which he could exert in the elections, hoped to 
secure an ascendency in the House of Deputies. Moreover, the af- 
fairs of Hungary, instead of being regulated in Hungary by native 
Hungarians, were managed by a bureau or chancery in Vienna, under 
the direct supervision and control of the Austrian cabinet. Austrian 
influence very naturally produced an Austrian party in the country, 
opposed to which was the great mass of the Hungarians, who took 
the designation of the Liberal or Patriotic party. 

5. At a most opportune moment, just after the first Revolution in 
Vienna, in March 1 848, when the emperor had conceded to the people 
of his hereditary States the rights and privileges which they demand- 
ed, a deputation from Hungary appeared, asking, for their kingdom, 
the royal assent to a series of acts passed by the Hungarian Diet, 
providing for its annual meeting, the union of Transylvania and 
Hungary, the organization of a National Guard, equality of taxation 
for all classes, religious toleration, freedom of the press, and a re- 
sponsible ministry. After some delay these acts received the royal 
assent, and on the 11th of April were confirmed by the emperor per- 
sonally, in the midst of the Diet assembled at Pesth,' the capital of 
Hungary. These concessions were received with the utmost joy 
throughout the Hungarian nation. 

1. Pesth., which, in conjunction with Cuda, is the seat, of government of Hungary, is on the 
east side of the Danube, immediately opposite Buda, with which it is connected by a bridge 
of boats. Population about sixty-five thousand. It is one hundred and thirty-five miles south- 
cast from Vienna. {J\Iap No. XVII.) 



550 MODERN HISTORY. [Part 11 

6. The sudden change from the restraints of a rigid government 
to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty, exerted, among the masses 
who had hitherto enjoyed no political privileges, and especially in the 
provinces dependent upon Hungary, an influence the most adverse to 
rational freedom. Liberty was construed to mean license : in some 
places the Jews were plundered and maltreated : officers and jurors 
who did their duty were sacrificed to the vengeance of the mob : the 
imbittered feelings and prejudices of race were kindled into all their 
fury ; and the most horrid atrocities were committed, while the new 
government, scarcely organized, was too feeble to afford protection to 
the persons and property of the more peaceful inhabitants. Calls 
upon the Austrian government for assistance from the Austrian 
troops in the provinces to suppress this anarchy were unheeded ; and 
the indifference thus shown to the welfare of Hungary gave rise to the 
first threats of separation. 

7. A more alarming danger to Hungary was the opposition against 
her in her own provinces, first secretly encouraged, and afterwards 
openly aided, by the Austrian government. The Hungarian domin- 
ions embrace a population of about fifteen millions, of whom only 
six millions are Magyars ; and unfortunately the other eight millions 
were so jealous of the Magyar ascendency as to be found either cold 
to the cause of Hungary, or openly joining the Austrian party. 
First the Croats, a portion of the southern Slavi, or Slavonians,^ af- 
ter demanding entire independence of Hungarian rule, and showing 
a disposition to place themselves in more immediate connection with 
Austria, also a Slavonic nation, took up arms against Hungary, and 
rejected all advances towards reconciliation. Notwithstanding the 
unconstitutionality of their position, the emperor sided in their favor, 
and sent Austrian armies to their aid. Portions of Slavonia proper 
joined the Croats ; and the Serbs," or Servians, in eastern Slavonia, 
distinguishing their revolt by the greatest atrocities, with unrelent- 
ing fury laid waste the Magyar villages, and massacred the unresist- 
ing inhabitants. The actual beginning of the Avar on the part of 
Hungary was the bombardment, on the 12th of June, 1848, of Car- 

1. The S!avo7iians comprise a numerous family of nations, descendants of the ancient Sar- 
matians. The Slavonian language extends throughout the whole of European Russia ; and 
dialects of it are spoken by the Croats, Servians, and Slavonians proper, and also by the Poles 
and Bohemians. 

2. The Serbs or Servians, who belong to the wide-spread Slavonian stock, are inhabitants of 
the Turkish province of Servia ; but many of the Serbs arc scattered throughout the southern 
Hungarian provinces. 



Chap. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 551. 

lowitz,* the metropolis or holy city of the Serbs. The city made a 
brave defence : the Ottoman Serbs hastened across the frontiers to 
the assistance of their brethren, and the Magyars were driven back 
into the fortress of Peterwardein.'^ The whole Servian race in the 
Banat' then rose in rebellion, and the peninsula^ at the confluence 
of the Theiss and the Danube became the theatre of a furious con- 
flict between the hostile races. Finally, on the 29th of June, the Aus- 
trian cabinet, throwing off all disguise, announced the intention of 
Austria to support Croatia openly. It soon appeared, also, that the 
altered condition of Austria, consequent upon the late triumphs of 
the imperial arms in Italy, had determined the emperor to revoke 
the concessions recently made to Hungary. 

8. The Hungarian Diet, now convinced that the constitution and 
independence of Hungary must be defended by force of arms, decreed 
a levy that should raise the Hungarian army to two hundred thou- 
sand men. In the meantime Jellachich, the ban, or governor, of 
Croatia, had advanced unopposed into Hungary, at the head of an 
Austrian and Croatian army, and had arrived within twenty miles 
of Pesth, wlien the eloquence and energy of Kossuth, one of the 
leaders of the patriot party, collected a considerable body of troops, 
and on the 29th of September Jellachich was repulsed and the capi- 
tal saved. The ban fled, and on the 5th of October the rear guard 
of the Croatian army, ten thousand strong, fell into the hands of the 
Hungarians. 

9. Hitherto both parties, the invaders and invaded, appeared to 
be acting under the orders of the emperor-king, a kind-hearted man, 
but of moderate abilities, and unfitted for the trying situation in 
which he found himself placed. Wearied by the contentions in dif- 
ferent parts of his empire, desiring the good of all his subjects, but 
distracted by diverse counsels, and involved, by a series of intrigues, 
in conflicting engagements, Ferdinand abdicated the throne on the 

1. Carloicitz is <i town of Slavonia, on the right bank of the Danube, four miles south-east of 
Peterwardein. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. Peterwardein, the capital of the Slavonian militaiy frontier district, and one of the strongest 
fortresses in the Austrian empire, is on the south bank of the Danube, in eastern Slavonia. It 
derives its present name from Peter the Hermit, who marshalled here the soldiers of the first 
crusade. {Map No, XVII.) 

3. Tlie Banat, or IIuugary-beyond-the-Theiss, is a large division of south-eastern Hungary, 
having Transylvania on the cast, and Slavonia on the west. {Map No. XVII.) 

a. " The very spot that was, in 1697, the theatre that witnessed the splendid victories of 
Eugene of Savoy over the Turks, and which were followed by the peace of Carlowitz, that 
memorable era in the history of the house of Austria and of Europe." — Stiles'* Austria^ ii. p. 6i^. 
See p. 390. 



552 MODERN HISTORY. [Pakt IL 

2d of December, but a short time after the second Revolution in 
Vienna, (see p. 542;) and, by a family arrangement, the crown was 
transferred, not to the next heir, Ferdinand's brother, but to his 
nephew Francis Joseph. The Hungarian Diet, declaring that Ferdi- 
nand had no right to lay down the crown of Hungary and transfer 
it to another — that the same was settled by statute on the direct heirs 
of the house of Hapsburg — and, moreover, that Francis Joseph had 
not taken the requisite oath, in the Hungarian capital, to preserve in- 
violate the constitution, laws, and liberties, of the Hungarians, — de- 
nied the right of the new emperor to reign over their nation. The 
Hungarians, however, averse to a war with Austria, attempted nego- 
tiations for a settlement of all difficulties ; but the Austrian cabinet, 
desirous of setting aside the constitutional privileges recently grant- 
ed to Hungary, had resolved upon the unconditional submission of 
the Hungarians ; and the new emperor yielded himself to the course 
of policy dictated by his ministers. 

10. With the alarming prospect of a desperate conflict with the 
whole power of the Austrian empire, several of the Hungarian leaders, 
who had thus far supported all the measures of the movement party, 
withdrew altogether from the struggle ; but the great mass of the 
Hungarian people, more than one-half of the high aristocracy, and 
nearly all the untitled nobility, and both Romanist and Protestant 
clergy, rallied around Kossuth, and sided with the country. Although 
the peasantry, whom the constitution had elevated from the condition 
of serfs to that of freemen, rose e7i masse, arms and ammunition 
were wanting, and the regular troops of Hungary were still in Italy, 
fighting the battles of Austria. Manufactories of powder and arms 
had to be established ; but they arose as if by magic ; and in every 
town the anvils rang with the clang of the arms which the artizans 
forged by night and by day. But, after all possible efforts, the Hun- 
garian army, at the actual opening of the campaign in December 
1848, amounted to only about sixty -five thousand men, which was as 
nothing compared with the forces which Austria was concentrating 
for the subjugation of the country. 

1 1. The plan of Prince Windischgratz, commander-in-chief of the 
Austrian forces, consisted in invading Hungary from nine points at 
the same time — all the lines of attack tending to a common centre, 
the capital of the kingdom. The main divisions of the Austrian 
army, entering Hungary from the north and west, met with but little 
opposition from the Hungarian general Gorgey, who had the com- 



Chap. VL] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 553 

mand in that quarter, and on the 5th of January, 1849, both Win- 
dischgratz and Jellachich entered Pesth without striking a blow. 
Kossuth and the government retired to Debreczin,^ in the south- 
eastern part of the kingdom, leaving a strong garrison, however, in 
the almost impregnable fortress of Comorn,'^ while the Hungarian 
forces gradually concentrated in the valley of the Theiss, from 
Eperies'' to the Danube. To protect the rear, General Bern, a Pole, 
was sent to Bukowina,* at the eastern extremity of Transylvania, at 
the head of ten thousand men. 

12. On the 30th of January the Hungarians lost the strong for- 
tress of Esseck' in Slavonia, which surrendered with about five thou- 
sand men. About the same time Bem was driven from Bukowina, 
and, after repeated disasters, from Transylvania also, — the Saxons 
and Wallachs," who form the bulk of tlie population, having joined 
the Austrians. The Szeklers, however, a wild, restless, and warlike 
race of southern Hungary, espousing the side of the Hungarians, 
placed themselves under the command of Bem, who, thus reenforced, 
was soon in a condition to resume the offensive. Again he entered 
Transylvania, at the head of a well-disciplined corps of twenty thou- 
sand men ; and although ten thousand Russian troops had crossed 
the frontiers to aid the Austrians, he repeatedly defeated their united 
forces, took Hermanstadt^ after a severe battle, and entered Cron- 
stadt® without opposition. In a few weeks Bem was complete master 



1. Debreczin, the great mart for the produce of northern and eastern Ilnngary, is situated in 
a flat, sandy, and arid plain, one hundred and fourteen miles east of Pesth. Population forty- 
flve Uiousand. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Comorn^ situated on a point of land formed by the confluence of the Waag and the Dan- 
ube, is forty-six miles north-east of Buda. The citadel is one of the strongest fortresses in 
Europe, and has never been taken. {Map No. XVII.) 

3. Eperics is a fortified town of Upper Hungary, on an affluent of the Theiss, one hundred 
and forty miles north-east of Pesth. 

4. Bukowina, ceded by the Turk.s to Austria in 1774, is now included in Galicia and Lodo- 
nieria. {Map No. XVII.) 

5. Esseck, (ancient Mmsia,) the capital of Slavonin, is a strongly-fortified town situated on 
the Drave, thirteen miles from its confluence with the Danube. It is one hundred and thirty- 
four miles south of Buda. Mui-sia, founded by the emperor Adrian, in the year 125, became 
the capital of Lower Pannonia. {Mnp No. XVII.) 

6. The Wallachs — properly the inlinbitants of the Turco-Russian province of Wallachia, are 
the descendants of the ancient Dacians. (Pronounced Wol'-laks: Wol-la'-ke-a.) 

7. Hervianstadt, the capital of the " Saxon land," a Saxon portion of Transylvania, is situated 
In an .extensive and fertile plain, on a branch of the Aluta, in the southern part of Transyl- 
vania. {Map No. XVII.) 

8. Cronstadt, the largest and most populous, as well as the principal manufacturing and 
commercial town of Transylvania— also in the "Saxon land"— is seventy miles east of Her- 
manstadt. {Map No. XVII.) 



554 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of Transylvania, from which he passed into the Banat, and captured 
Temeswar,^ its capital. 

13. In the meantime important events had occurred in the valley 
of the Theiss. About the first of February Greneral Dembinski, 
also a Pole, was invested, by Kossuth, with the command-in-chief of 
the Hungarian armies. Although the appointment of Dembinski 
aroused the jealousy of the native Hungarian officers, who seconded 
him with little cordiality, yet his plan of operations was judicious. 
Leaving strong garrisons at Szegedin'^ and on the Maros,^ about the 
middle of February he concentrated his forces in the upper valley 
of the Theiss, to meet the Austrians, then advancing in full force 
under Windischgratz. In the vicinity of Kapolua,^ on the 26th and 
27th, a severe battle was fought between forty thousand Hungarians 
and sixty thousand Austrians, without any decisive result ; but had 
it not been for the inactivity of Gorgey, who restricted himself to a 
defensive position, the Austrians would have suffered a total defeat. 

14. Early in March Dembinski resigned, and General Vetter was 
appointed commander-in-chief of the Hungarian forces ; but owing 
to the illness of Vetter the command soon devolved on Gorgey, 
under whom was gained a series of victories by which the Austrians 
were for a time driven out of Hungary. On the 4th of April Jclla- 
chich was defeated at Tapiobieske,' and on the 6th the corps of 
Windischgratz at Godollo :^ on the 9th Gorgey took Waitzen^ by 
storm : on the 19th the Ausrians were defeated in a desperate battle 
at Nagy-Sarlo f and on the 20th Gorgey relieved the fortress of 
Comorn, which the Austrians had closely besieged during several 
months. In a few days the main body of the Austrians was driven 
from the right bank of the Danube, when nothing but a routed army 
remained between the Hungarians and the city of Vienna. Had 
Gorgey then followed up his successes, as he was strongly urged 
to do by Kossuth, in two days his forces might have bivouacked 
in the Austrian capital ; but he remained inactive eight days at 
Comorn, and then proceeded to the siege of the fortress of Buda,* 

1. Tcmesioar, the capital of the Bauat, is a strongly-fortified town, seventy-five miles north- 
east of Peterwardein. It was taken from tlie Turks in 1716 by Prince Eugene. The Bega 
canal, seventy-three miles in length, passes.through the town. Temeswar is supposed to rej>. 
resent the ancient Tabiscus, to which Ovid was banished. (Map No. XVII.) 

2. Szegediniaa large town of PI angary, situated at the confluence of the Maros and the 
Theiss, one hundred miles south-east of Pesth. (Jllap No. XVII.) 

3. I'or tlie river Maros, and the towns Kapolna, Tapiobieske, GodullO, Waitzen, and Nagy- 
Sarlo, see Mop No. XVII. 

4. Buday situated on the right bank of the Danube, one hundred and thirty-five miles south 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 555 

which was carried by storm on the 2 1 st of May. Buda was the bait 
which the retreating army left behind them to lure the Hungarians ; 
and its siege was the salvation of Vienna, and, perhaps, of the Aus- 
trian empire. 

15. On the 4th of March the Austrian emperor had made known 
the project of a constitution for his empire, the effect of which would 
have been to rob Hungary of her independence and constitutional 
rights. This measure, in connection with the well-known fact that, 
liussia had been invoked to lend her aid in suppressing the Hungarian 
rebellion, induced the Hungarian Diet to make, on the 1 4th of July, 
1849, the declaration of Hungarian independence. The Diet also 
decreed that, until the form of government to be adopted for the 
future should be fixed by the nation, the government should be con- 
ducted by Louis Kossuth and the ministers to be appointed by him. 
Kossuth was thereupon unanimously declared governor of Hungary, 
with little less than regal powers. 

16. The demand which the Austrian emperor had made upon the 
Czar for assistance was neither rejected nor delayed ; and prepara- 
tions for a second campaign against Hungary were speedily com- 
pleted. Four hundred thousand men, of whom one hundred and 
sixty thousand were Russians, were assembled on the Hungarian 
frontiers early in June, — the whole being placed under the command- 
in-chief of the Austrian general Haynau, of whom little was then 
known, except that he had served under Radetsky in Italy, where he 
had distinguished himself by his atrocities. To meet this force the 
Hungarians had raised an army of one hundred and forty thousand 
men, with four hundred pieces of artillery. Of these, forty-five thou- 
sand, under the immediate command of Grorgey, were on the upj^er 
Danube, between Presburg' and the capital. The other principal 
divisions of the Hungarian forces consisted of thirty-five thousand 
men under Greneral Perczel in the Banat, tliirty-two thousand under 
General Bern in Transylvania, and twelve thousand under Dembinski 
at Eperies, near the Galician frontier. 

17. Almost simultaneously, in the early j^art of June, Haynau, at 
tlie head of fifty thousand men, entered Hungary at Presburg ; 

east of Vienna, is, in conjunction with Peslh, the capital of Hungary. Attila occasionally made 
lUida his residence. Arpad, the IMagyar chief, made it his head-quarlers in the year 900 ; and 
it then became the cradle of the Hungarian monarchy. (Map No. XVII.) 

1. Prcsburff, once the capital of Hungary, is on the north bank of the Danube, thirty-four 
miles east of Vienna. The castle, now in ruins, is memorable as the scene of the appeal made 
in 1741 by Maria Theresa to the Hungarian States, which was so generously responded to by 
the latter. See p. 450. (Map No. XVII.) 



556 MODERN HISTORY. [Paet IL 

Paskiewitch, at the head of eighty-seven thousand Russians, passed 
the frontiers of Galicia, and descended into the valley of the Theiss 
by way of Bartfeld' and Eperies ; and forty thousand Russians and 
fourteen thousand Austrians entered Transylvania from the south 
and east. Smaller divisions entered at other points — the whole de- 
signed to enclose the Hungarians within a circle of armies, in the 
plains of the Theiss and the Danube. 

18. The plan of the Austrians and Russians was too successfully 
carried out. The Russians, after encountering a heroic resistance, 
drove Bern from Transylvania : Jellachich, after experiencing the 
most disastrous defeat in the defile of Hegyes,^ marched up the 
Theiss : the Russians, under Paskiewitch, in two divisions entered 
Debreczin on the 7th of July, and Pesth on the 11th. Hajmau 
fought his way from Presburg to the vicinity of Comorn, near which 
place he fought, on the 11th of July, a severe battle with Gorgey, 
in which the latter had the advantage. On the 19th he reached 
Pesth, where he renewed those brutal scenes which had marked his 
whole career in Hungary. To his own everlasting infamy, and the 
deep disgrace of the Austrian government, he repeatedly ordered 
ladies of great respectability and high rank to be publicly flogged 
for having held communication with the" insurgents, — and one, the 
daughter of a professor in Raab, for having turned her back upon 
the emperor as he entered the city. Brave oflicers were hanged by 
him for no other crime than that of defending their country. Hay- 
nau, by his barbarities, fully earned the title which has been given 
him, — that of " Hungary's Hangman." 

19. From Comorn, Gorgey, constantly harassed by the enemy, re- 
treated to Waitzen, and thence to Onod,^ and on the 29th crossed 
the Theiss at Tokay,* from which place he turned south, and, pur- 
sued by the enemy, continued his retreat, until, on the 8th of August, 

1. Bartfeld is at the foot of the Carpatliian monnlaius, in northern Hungary, on the Tope, an 
affluent of the Theiss. It formerly enjoyed considerable distinction as a seat of learning. It is 
one hundred and fifty-five miles north-east from Pesth. {Map No. XVII.) 

2. Hegyes is a small town of Southern Hungary, thirtj'-five miles north-west of Peterwardein. 
{Map No. XVII.) 

3. Onod is on the western bank of the Theiss, ninety-five miles north-east of Pesth. {Map 
No. XV 11.) 

4. Toknij is a small town, situated at the confluence of the Bodrog with Ihe Theiss, one hun- 
dred and thirteen miles north-east from Pesth. Tokay derives its whole celebrity from its being 
the entrepot for the sale of the famous sweet wine of tlie same name, made in a hilly tract of 
country extending twenty-flve or thirty miles north-west from the town. Tiie finest quality of 
the wine is that which flows from the ripe grapes by their own pressure, while in heaps. {Map 
No. XVII.) 



Chap. VI] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 557 

he reached the fortress of Aracl/ on the Maros. Petty jealousies 
between the Hungarian generals frequently prevented concert of 
action and a union of forces when the safety of whole armies depend- 
ed upon it; and the ambition of Gorgey, in particular, who was 
possessed of both skill and courage, seemed to be to show himself a 
great general. His country's safety was a secondary consideration. 

20. Dembinski, in the meantime, had retreated south, and crossed 
the Danube also in the Banat. After almost constant jfighting on 
the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th of August, on the latter of which days he 
was severely wounded, on the 9th his army, commanded by Bem, 
fought with Jellachich and Haynau the decisive battle of Temeswar, 
in which the Austrians were at first repulsed with great loss ; but 
the failure of ammunition in the Hungarian Imes finally gave the 
victory to the Austrians. The southern Hungarian army was com- 
pletely broken up by this disaster : many laid down their arms and 
returned home : some escaped into Turkey ; and some thousands fell 
into the hands of the pursuing enemy. On the 8th Gorgey had 
reached Arad with forty thousand troops, within half a day's march 
of the spot where Dembinski was fighting ; but instead of joining his 
countrymen at that opportune moment, when he might have turned 
the scale of victory, he was then engaged in efibrts for obtaining the 
dissolution of the government, and procuring for himself the ap- 
pointment of dictator. Gorgey's fidelity to the Hungarian cause had 
long been suspected, even by Kossuth himself, yet he had been re- 
tained in command of the largest division of the Hungarian army ; 
and now, when he declared that he alone could and would save the 
country if dictatorial powers were conferred upon him, Kossuth, 
considering the cause of Hungary desperate, took the important step 
of dissolving the government and conferring upon Gorgey the su- 
preme civil and military power. (Aug. 10th.) 

21. It soon appeared that Gorgey had long maintained a treason- 
able correspondence with the enemy. He had long disobeyed, at his 
pleasure, the orders sent him by the government ; and he now made 
such a disposition of his forces that the Russians might enclose his army, 
of which, in spite of its corrupt condition, he still stood in fear. On 
the 13th he surrendered to the Russian general Rudiger, without 
any conditions, his entire force, with one hundred and forty-four can- 
nons. When the troops were drawn up for surrender, grief and in- 

1. Mrad is a strongly-fortified town, situated on both sides of the Maros, twenty-seven milea 
north of Temeswar. {Map No. XVII.) 



558 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II 

dignation were visible througliout the ranks : one officer broke his 
sword, and threw it with curses at Gorgey's feet : many a hussar 
shot his noble charger, that it might not survive the disgrace of its 
master ; and some regiments burned their standards, determined 
never to surrender them to the enemy. 

22. A few days before Gorgey's treacherous surrender, one parting 
gleam of success shed its lustre on the Hungarian arms. At mid- 
night on the 3d of August the garrison of Comorn, commanded by 
General Klapka, sallied from the fortress, and drove back the Aus- 
trians with dreadful slaughter ; and so great was the panic that on 
the 5th of August Raab' was taken, and with it supplies and ammu- 
nition to the value of several millions of dollars. The peasantry in 
the valley of the Danube rose en inasse, and Klapka thought serious- 
ly of marching upon Vienna itself, when the news of Gorgey's sur- 
render paralyzed all farther effort. Comorn surrendered on the 29th 
of September, on favorable terms ; and with the fall of that import- 
ant fortress, terminated the military operations in Hungary. 

23. After the surrender of Gorgey, Kossuth left Arad and direct- 
ed his course to the Turkish frontier, and, finding that no hope re- 
mained of serving his country, delivered himself up to the Ottoman 
garrison at Widdiu." Austria in vaid demanded him of the Turkisli 
government. When he was finally permitted to leave the country 
he came to the United States. The attentions there bestowed upon 
him for his noble efforts in the cause of Hungarian freedom, called 
forth, from the Austrian government, a remonstrance, which was 
nobly answered by Mr. Webster, the American Secretary of State. 
Bern also fled into Turkey, where, after receiving a command in the 
Turkish army, he died in 1850, of wounds received in the Hungarian 
war. Dembinski and a few others followed the fortunes of Kossuth. 

24. On the 6th of October, 1849, — a day rendered forever mem- 
orable for infamy in the annals of Austria — thirteen Hungarian 
generals and staff officers, who had surrendered, were shot or hanged 
at Arad : many of the Hungarian ministers and other civil officials 
were also executed : an immense number of inferior officers were sent 
to fortresses to be imprisoned for life, or a term of years ; and about 
seventy thousand Hungarians, who had taken part in the contest, 

1. Rauh is situated soulli of the Danube, twenty-two miles soutli-west of Comorn. It M'as a 
strong post under tlie Romans. In 1809 an Austrian force was routed by the French under its 
walls. (,Map No. XVII.j 

2. Widdiu is a fortified town of Bulgaria in Turkey, on the southern bank of the Danube, one 
hundred and sixty-five miles south-east of Peter wardein. (^Map No. VII.) 



Chap VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 559 

were forcibly enlisted in Austrian regiments. Thus terminated the 
struggle of Hungary for freedom. Her national existence, preserved 
through a thousand years, was annihilated, not so much by the over- 
whelming power of two great empires, as by the faults and treason of 
her own sons.^ 

VI. Usurpation of Louis Napoleon. 1. After France had 
adopted a republican constitution in 1848, the election of a chief 
magistrate, to hold the executive power of the nation for four years, 
became the absorbing subject of thought and discussion with the 
French people. Six candidates were in the field, — Lamartine, Ledru 
RoUin, Raspail, Generals Changarnier and Cavaignac, and Louis Na- 
poleon. Lamartine, who had saved the country from anarchy in the 
Revolution of February, but had made a feeble president of the pro- 
visional government, soon virtually withdrew from the contest, b}* re- 
questing his friends to make no efforts in his behalf: the adherents 
of Ledru Rollin, although earnest and active, were, comparatively, 
few in number : Raspail and Changarnier possessed no peculiar rec- 
ommendations for the office ; and it was soon evident that the choice 
would lie between General Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon — the 
former, popular with the Assembly and the leading republicans, a 
man of tried integrity, and possessing every requisite qualification 
for the office — the latter an adventurer, who had made two fool- 
hardy attempts to usurp the throne of France, viewed with jealousy 
and distrust by the republicans, and treated with coldness by the 
politicians of all parties, but strong in the prestige of a name, 
and hailed by the people as the living representative of that world- 
renowned emperor whom France can never forget. The result of 
the election surprised every one. Seven and a-half millions of votes 
were polled in the nation, and, of these, five and a-half millions 
were cast for Louis Napoleon, who was inaugurated President ou 
the 20th of December. He then solemnly swore " to remain faith- 
ful to the Democratic Republic, and to fulfil all the duties which the 
constitution imposed upon him." 

2. Louis Napoleon, the son of Louis Bonaparte and Hortense 
Beauharnais, the king and queen of Holland, was born in the palace 

a. When Kossuth, with the members of the provisional government, was retreating from 
point to point as the Austrian and Russian armies advanced, he carried with him the Hunga- 
rian regalia — the royal jewels, and the crown of St. Stephen — objects of almost religious ven- 
eration to the Hungarian people. It long remained a mystery what had become of them, but 
after years of search by individuals sent out by the Austrian government, they were discovered 
in Sept. 1853, buried in an iron chest near the confines of Wallachia. 



560 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

of the Tuilleries on the 20th of April, 1808, and, being the first 
prince of the Napoleon dynasty born under the imperial regime, and 
the only one living at the time of his election as President of the 
French Republic, considered himself, and was acknowledged by the 
Bonapartists, as the legitimate representative of the emperor Napo- 
leon, and the heir to his empire. After his second attempt, in 
August 1840, to excite a Revolution against Louis Phillippe, he was 
confined in the castle of Ham,^ from which he made his escape in 
May 1846, after an imprisonment of more than five years. Being 
in London at the time of the Revolution of February, 1848, he imme- 
diately repaired to Paris, but was so coldly received by the members 
of the provisional government that he again left the country. Soon 
after he was informed that he had been elected a member of the As- 
sembly from three different departments ; but the hostility against 
him in the Assembly was so great that, deeming it unsafe to take 
his seat as a delegate, he resigned the office. In the election to fill 
vacancies, in August, he was reelected, when he returned to France, 
and on the 26th of September took his seat as the representative of 
Paris, his native city. But even then, nearly all the members, re- 
garding him as a secret enemy of the government, treated him with 
marked coldness and neglect ; nor did the icy reserve wear away 
when the sufi"ragos of nearly six millions of his countrymen had 
elevated him to the first place in the Republic. 

3. The first act of Louis Napoleon was to make a public declara- 
tion of the principles of his government, which he avowed to be 
strictly republican ; yet from the outset it was assumed by a large 
portion of the Assembly that he would prove unfaithful to his oath, 
and endeavor to establish an imperial dynasty. The Assembly was 
composed of several parties, — first, the Legitimists, who were ad- 
herents of the elder branch of the Bourbons : — second, the Orlean- 
ists, who desired to see the heir of Louis Phillippe raised to the 
throne : — third, the Republicans, both moderate and ultra ; — and, 
finally, the Bonapartists, who openly expressed their desire for the 
restoration of the empire, and were encouraged by Louis Napoleon, 
although he remained professedly attached to the Republic. 

4. From the beginning there was no mutual confidence between 
the President and the Assembly ; and while the conduct of the 

]. Ham^ celebrated for its strong fortress used as a State Prison, is a town in a marshy plain, 
in tiie former province of Picardy, seventy miles north-east from Paris, and thirty-five south-east 
from Amiens. Here Prince Polignac and other ministers of Charles X. were confined for six 
years. 



Chap. VI.] NINETEENTH CENTURY. 561 

former exhibited marked dishonesty of purpose in furthering his am- 
bitious views, the whole career of the latter was a serious of intrigues 
against the President, of party contests, and encroachments upon 
popular rights. The Assembly introduced severe restrictions upon 
the liberty of the press : it placed the entire control of education in 
the hands of the Roman Catholic clergy : it made restrictions upon 
the right of suffrage, which disfranchised three millions of electors ; 
and it united with the President in sending an army to crush the 
rising Republic of Rome. 

5. The constitution of 1848 provided that it might be revised by 
a vote of three-fourths of the Assembly during the last year of the 
Presidential term, and that the President should be ineligible to 
reelection, until after an interval of four years. This latter provision 
would therefore render the continuance of Louis Napoleon in power 
impossible, without a revision of the constitution. Early in 1851 the 
question of revision was brought before the Assembly, and after 
being the subject of some very exciting and stormy debates, in which 
any change was vehemently opposed by the republicans, the motion 
to revise failed by nearly a hundred votes. 

6. In his annual message in November the President strongly urged 
upon the Assembly the extension of the right of suffrage, a measure 
which greatly increased his popularity with the French people ; but 
the bill introduced for that purpose was rejected by the Assembly. 
Soon after, the increasing animosity of the Assembly towards the 
President was exhibited by the proposal of a law authorizing his 
impeachment in case he should seek a reelection in violation of the 
constitution. His accusation and arrest on a charge of treason were 
also hinted at. 

7. The strife of parties in the Assembly was fast bringing matters 
to a crisis that would probably have ended in anarchy and civil war, 
when suddenly — unexpectedly — and quietly, Louis Napoleon put 
forth his hand, and with a degree of skill that would have done honor 
to his great name-sake, grasped the reins of power, and, crushing the 
constitution, overwhelmed all opposition to his will. On the night 
of Monday, December 1st, the palace of the President was the scene 
of a gay assemblage of the fashion and beauty of Paris ; and it was 
remarked that the President was in the highest spirits, and unusually 
attentive to his guests. On the following morning the inhabitants 
of Paris awoke to find the city filled with troops, and every com- 
manding position in the vicinity occupied by them, while the Presi- 



562 MODERN HISTORY. [Part II. 

dent's decree, posted on every wall, announced the dissolution of the 
National Assembly, the restoration of universal suffrage, and the es- 
tablishment of martial law throughout Paris. The chief members 
of the Assembly, together with Generals Cavaignac, Changarnier, 
Lamoriciere, and others, had been seized in their beds, and were already 
in prison : not a man was left of sufficient ability and popularity to 
rally the people ; the coiip cVetat was entirely successful, and Louis 
Napoleon was absolute dictator of France. 

8. On Tuesday the 2d of December about three hundred members 
of the Assembly, finding the doors of the hall of legislation guarded, met 
in another part of the city, declared the President guilty of treason, 
and proclaimed his deposition ; but scarcely had they signed the 
decree when they were surrounded by a band of soldiers, and all 
marched to prison. The Assembly being destroyed, measures were 
next taken to disarm the power of the press ; and none of the jour- 
nals, except the government organs, were allowed to appear. On 
Wednesday, the 3d, a decree was promulgated, convening the whole 
people for an election to be held between the 14th and 22d of De- 
cember — the questions submitted to them being whether Louis Na- 
poleon should remain at the head of the state ten years, or not, with 
the power of forming a new constitution on the basis of universal 
suffrage. On Thursday, the 4th, troops were called out to suppress 
an insurrection in Paris : no quarter was given, and about a thousand 
of the insurgents were killed, when tranquillity was restored. In 
some of the departments the people rose in great strength against 
the usurpation ; but the army remained faithful, and in the course 
of two or three days all resistance was quelled. 

9. It had been arranged that the army should vote first on the 
great question submitted to the nation ; and, as had been anticipated, 
its vote was nearl}'- unanimous in favor of Louis Napoleon. The 
official returns showed nearly seven and a half millions of votes in 
his favor, and but little more than half a million against him. Thus 
the nation sanctioned his usurpation of the 2d of December, and 
virtually proclaimed its wish for the restoration of the empire. On 
the 1st of January, 1852. the result of the election was celebrated at 
Paris with more than royal magnificence, and on the 14th the new 
constitution was decreed. It was avowedly based on the constitution 
which the emperor Napoleon had given to the French nation. It 
intrusted the government to Louis Napoleon for, ten years, made 
him commander-in-chief of the army and navy, gave him control over 
legislation, and the power to declare war and make treaties. He was 
all but in name an emperor ; and before a year had passed he assumed 
that title, apparently with the consent, and by the desire, of the na- 
tion. France had accepted the Napoleon Dynasty as a refuge from 
anarchy — as the only compromise 'between Bourbonism, or the past, 
and Republicanism, or tlie future. 



GENERAL GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL VIEWS, 

(in addition to the notes throughout the work.) 

ILLUSTRATED BY THE FOLLOWING MAPS. 

Page Map No. 

ANCIENT GREECE 564 I. 

ATHENS AND ITS HARBORS 566 II. 

ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN SEA 568 III. 

ASIA MINOR 570 IV. 

PERSIAN EIVIPIRE 572 V. 

PALESTINE 574 VL 

TURKEY IN EUROPE 576 VIL 

ANCIENT ITALY 578 VIII. 

ROMAN EMPIRE 580 IX. 

ANCIENT ROME 582 X. 

CHART OF THE WORLD 584 XL 

BATTLE GROUNDS OF NAPOLEON, &c 586 XH. 

FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL 588 XIII. 

SWITZERLAND, DENMARK, &c 590 XIV. 

NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND AND BELGIUM) 592 XV. 

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 594 XVL 

CENTRAL EUROPE 596 XVIL 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 598 XVIII, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN GREECE. Map No. I. 

A general description of both Ancient and Modern Greece may be found on pp. 21 and 22— 
Grecian Mythology, 2i to 27— Ancient History of Greece, 27 to 12:$— Modern History, 5113 to 
5 >:< For descriptive accounts of the Grecian States, and important towns, cities, rivers, battle- 
grounds, &c., see the ^- Index to the Descriptive Notes" at the end of the volume. 

The following is a brief synopsis of the leading events in Grecian History, beginning: with 
the Persian wars, which ended B. 0. 469. The Feloponnesian wars lasted nearly thirty years, 
B C 431-404 Subjugation of Greece by Philip of Macedon, B. G. 338, after which come the 
conque^^ls of Alexander, the Achaean League, and then the Roman conquest, B. C. 14(5, from 
which time, during thirteen hundred and fif(y years, Greece continued lo be either really or 
nominally a portion of the Roman empire. Tlie country was invaded by Alanc the Goih, 
A. D. 400, and afterwards by Genseric and Zaber Khan, in the sixth and seventh, and by the 
Normans in the eleventh century. Afier the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders in 
1204, Greece was divided into feudal principalities, and governed by a variety of Norman, Ve- 
netian, and Prankish nobles. It was invaded by the Turks in 1438, and conquered by them in 
1481 It was the theatre of wars between the Turks and Venetians during the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries ; but by the treaty of Passarovitch, in 1718, it was given up to tlie Turks, 
who retained possession of ihe country till the breaking out of the Greek Revolution in 1821. 

The present kingdom of Greece embraces all the Grecian peninsula south of the ancient 
Enirus and Thes' suly, as seen on the accompanying map, together with Eubuj'a, theCyc' lades, 
and the northern Spor' ades. Tlies' saly, now a Turkish province, retains its ancient name and 
limits- Epirus is embraced in the Turkish province of Albania, for which, see Map No. VII. 

The Modern Greeks are described as being, generally, "rather above the middle height, 
and well-shaped; they have the face oval, features regular and expressive, eyes large, dark, 
and animated, evebrows arched, hair long and dark, and complexions olive colored." They 
retain many of tlie customs and ceremonies of the ancients ; the common people are extremely 
credulous and superstitious, and pay much attention to auguries, omens, and dreams. They 
belon"- mostly to the Greek Clmrch ; they deny the supremacy ot the pope, abhor the worship 
of images and reject the doctrine of purgatory, but believe in transubstantiation. The priests 
are generally poor and illiterate, although improving in their attainments; and their habits are 
generally simple and exemplary. . . j ,, , • , 

The inhabitants of Northern Greece, or Hellas, are said to have retained " a chivalrous and 
warlike spirit, with a simplicity of manners and mode of life which strongly remind us of the 
pictures of the heroic age." The inhabitants of the Peloponnesus are more ignorant and less 
honest than those of Hellas. Previous to the Greek Revolution, remains of the Hellenic race 
were found, in their greatest puritv, in the mountainous parts of the country— in the vicinity 
of Mount Parnassus in Northern (ireece, and the inhospitable tracts of Taygetos in Southern 
Greece, whither they had been driven from the plains by their ruthless oppressors. The 
lannuaa-e of the modern Greeks bears, in many of its words, and in its general forms and 
Grammatical structure, a strong resemblance to the ancient Greek— similar to the relation sus- 
Tained by the Italian lo the Latin; but as the pronunciation of tiie ancient Greek is lost, how 
far the modern tongue corresponds to it in that particular cannot be ascertained. 

Travellers still speak in the highest terms of the line views everywhere fomid in Grecian scene- 
ry ;_and besides their natural beauties, they are doubly dear to us by the thousand hallowed asso- 
cia'tions connected with them by scenes of historic interest, and by the numerous ruins of 
ancient art and splendor which cover the country— recalling a glorious Past, upon which we 
Jove to dwell as upon the memory of departed friends, or the scenes of happy childhood— 
"sweet, but mournful, lo the soul." 

"Yet are ihy skies as blue, iliy crags as wild; 

Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, • 

Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled. 

And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields. 

There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds. 

The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air; 

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds. 

Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; 
Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair. 

"Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground; 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould. 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 
And all the muses tales seem truly told. 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold. 
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone : 
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon." 

Childe Harolds, canto ii. 







> Mil. .. (Hi 




^- ■:'::# 




L1?^»i;,LS^W^'^-j; 










'^ s 






,t ALL 01 AOLbJi^^: 



ANCIENT ATHENS. Map No. 11. 



Among the monuments of antiquity which still exist at Athens, tlie most striking are those 
which surmount the Acrop'olis, or Cecropian citadel, which is a rocky height rising abruptly 
out of the Attic plain, and accessible only on the western side, where stood (he Propyla'a, a 
magnificent structure of the Doric order, which served as the gate as well as the defence of 
the Acrop'olis. But the chief glory of Athens was the Par' thenon, or temple of Minerva, 
which stood on the highest point, and near the centre, of the Acrop' olis. It was constructed 
entirely of the most beautiful white marble from Mount Pentel' Ileus, and i(s dimensions were 
two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one himdred and two — having eight Doric columns iu 
each of the two fronts, and seventeen in each of the sides, and also an interior range of six 
columns in each end. The ceiling of the western part of the main building was supported by 
four interior columns, and of the eastern end by sixteen. The entire height of the building 
above its platform was sixty-five feet. The whole was enriched, within and without, with 
matchless works of art by the first sculptors of Greece. This magnificent structure remained 
entire until the year 1637, when, during a siege of Athens by the Venetians, a bomb fell on the 
devoted Par' thenon, and setting fire to the powder which the Turks had stored there, entirely 
destroyed the roof, and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight columns of the 
eastern front, however, and several of the lateral colonnades, are still standing, and the whole, 
dilapidated as it is, still retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity. 

North of the Par' thenon stood the Erechtheium, an irregular but beautiful structure of tho 
Ionic order, dedicated to the worship of Neptune and Minerva. Considerable remains of it 
are still existing. In addition to the three great edifices of the Acrop' olis, which were adorned 
with the most finished paintings and sculptures, the entire platform of the hill appears to have 
been covered with a vast composition of architecture and sculpture, consisting of temples, 
monuments, and statues of Grecian gods and heroes. Among these may be mentioned statues 
of Jupiter, Apollo, Neptune, Mercury, Venus, and Minerva ; and a vast number of statues of 
eminent Grecians — the whole Acrop' olis having been at once the fortress, the sacred enclosure, 
and the treasury of the Athenian nation, and forming the noblest museum of sculpture, the 
richest gallery of painting, and the best school of architecture in the world. 

Beneath the southern wall of the Acrop' olis, near its eastern extremity, wiis the Theatre of 
Bacchus^ which was capable of containing thirty thousand persons, and whose seats, rising one 
above another, were cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the Odeum 
built by Pericles, and beneath the western extremity of the Acrop' olis was the Odeum or 
Musical Theatre^ constructed in the form of a tent. On the north-east side of the Acrop' olis s:ood 
the Prytaneum^ where were many statues, and where citizens who had rendered service to the 
Slate were maintained at the public expense. A short distance to the north-west of the 
Acrop' olis was the small eminence called Areop' agus, or hill of Mars, at the eastern extremity 
of which was situated the celebrated court of the Areop' agus. About a quarter of a mile 
eouth-west stood the Pnyx^ the place where the public assemblies of Athens were held in its 
palmy days, a spot that will ever be associated with the renown of Demosthenes, and other famed 
Athenian orators. The steps by which the speaker mounted the rostrum, and a tier of three 
seats for the audience, hewn iu the solid rock, are slill visible. A short distance south of the 
Pnyx was the eminence called the Museum^ that part of Athens where the poet Musaeus is siiid 
to have been burled. 

In the Ceramicus, north and west of the Acrop" olis, one of the most considerable parts of the 
ancient city, were many public buildings, some dedicated to the worship of the gods, others 
used for stores, and for the various markets, and some for schools, while the old Forum, often 
used for large assemblies of the people, occupied the interior. North of the Areop' agus is the 
Temple of Theseus, built of marble by Cimou. The roof, friezes, and cornices, of this temple, 
have been but little impaired by time, and the whole is one of the most noble remains of the 
ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most perfect, if not the most beautiful, existing 
specimen of Grecian architecture. 

South-east of the Acrop' olis, and near the Ilissus, is now to be seen a cluster of sixteen mag- 
nificent Corinthian columns of Pentelic marble, the only remaining ones of a hundred and 
twenty, which mark the site of the Temple of Jupiter Olympius. On the left bank of the 
Ilissus was the StMium, used for gymnastic contests, and capable of accommodating twenty-five 



No. n. 




568 

thonsand persons. The marble seats have disappeared, but the masses of masonry which 
formed the semi-circular end still remain. 

Just without the ancient city walls on the east was the Lyceum, embellished with buildings, 
groves, and fountains,— a place of assembling for military and gymnastic exercises, and a 
favorite resort for philosophical study and contemplation. Near the fool of Mount Anchesmus 
was the Cynosar' ges, a place adorned with several temples, a gymnasium, and groves sacred to 
Hercules. Beyond the walls of the city on the north was the Jlcademy, or Public Garden, — 
surrounded with a wall, and adorned with statues, temples, and sepulchres of illustrious men, 
and planted with olive and plane trees. Within this enclosure Plato possessed a small garden, 
in which he opened his school. Thence arose the Academic sect. 

Athens had three great harbors, the Pirae' us, Munych' ia, and Phal' erum. Anciently Iheso 
ports formed a separate city larger than Athens itself, with which they were connected by 
means of two long walls. During the prolonged conflict of the revolutionary war in Greece, 
from 1820 to 18-27, Athens was in ruins, but it is the now capital of the kingdom of Greece. 

The philosophical era in the history of Athens has been beautifully alluded to by Milton. 

" See there the olive grove of Academe, 
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird 
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer-long: 
There flowery hill Hyraettus with the sound 
Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites 
To studious musing ; There Ilissus rolls 
His whispering stream: within the walls then view 
The schools of ancient sages ; his who bred 
Great Alexander to subdue the world, 
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next ; 
******** 

To sage philosophy next lend thine ear. 
From Heaven descended to the low-roofed house 
Of Socrates ; see there his tenement. 
Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced 
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth 
Mellifluous streams that water'd all the schools 
Of Academics old and new, with those 
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect 
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe." 



ISLANDS OF THE iEGEAN. Map No. III. 

The ^GEAN Sea, now called the Archipelago, is that part of the Mediterranean lying between 
Greece, the islands Crete and Rhodes, and Asia Minor. It embraces those groups of Islands, 
the Cyc' lades and the Spor' ades ;* also Euboe'a, Lesbos, Chios, Tenedos, Lemnos, &c., ne.irly 
all of which cluster with interesting classical associations. Mentioning only the most important 
in history, and beginning in the northern Archipelago, we have Thasos, now Theso or Tasso, 
early colonized by the Phoenicians on account of its valuable silver mines :—Sainot/iracc, where 
the mysteries of Cybele, the " Mother of the Gods," are said to have originated: — Jjcmnns, 
known in ancient mythology as the spot on which Vulcan fell, after being hurled down from 
heaven, and where he established hi^iorge'.— Tenedos, whither the Greeks retired, as V'irgil 
relates, in order to surprise the Trojans -.—Lesbos, celebrated for its olive oil and figs, and as 
being the abode of pleasure and licentiousness, while the inhabitants boasted a high degree of 
intellectual cultivation, and, especially, great musical attainments :— Chios, now Scio, called Uie 
garden of the Archipelago, and claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer:— Samos, early 
distinguished in the maritime annals of Greece for its naval ascendency, and for its splendid 
temple of Juno : — Icaria, whose name mythology derives from Ic' arus, who fell into the sea near 
the island after the unfortunate termination of his flight from Crete:— Patinas, to which St. 
John was banished, and where he wrotii his Apocalypse: — Cos, celebrated for its temple of 
^sculapius, and as being the birthplace of Hippocrates, the greatest physician of antiquity :— 
J\risyrus, said to have been separated from Cos by Neptune, that he might hurl it against the 



* The division between the (>c' lades and Spor' ades, on the accompanying Map, should 
Include the islands Ascania, Thera, and Anaphe, among the latter. 



No. in. 




570 

giant Polybffi' tes -.—Jin' a}}he, said to have been made to rise by thunder from the bottom of 
the sea, in order to receive the Argonauts during a storm, on tlieir return from Colchis:— 
Thera^ now called Santorin, said to have been formed in the sea by a clod of earth thrown from 
the ship Argo -.—Jistypalca'a, called also Trapedza, or the "Table of the Gods," because its soil 
was fertile, and almost enamelled with flowers :—./3?ttor^«5, the birthplace of the Iambic poet 
Simon' ides :—/os, claimed to have been the burial place of Homer :—./»/c/os, now Milo, cele- 
brated for its obstinate resistance to the Athenians, and its cruel treatment by them, (see p. 
83) -.—Jintipnros^ celebrated for its grotto, of great depth and singular beauty -.—Paros, famed 
for its beautiful and enduring marble :— JVaxos, the largest of the Cyc' lades, celebrated for the 
worship of Bacchus, who is said to have been born there :—Seri.phus, celebrated in mythology 
as the scene of the most remarkable adventures of Perseus, who changed Polydec' tes, king of 
this island, and his subjects, into stones, to avenge the wrongs oflered to his mother Danae :— 
Dclos, (a small island between Rhenea and Mycanos,) celebrated as the natal island of Apollo 
and Diana : — Ceos^ the birthplace of the Elegiac poet Simonides, grandson of t!ie poet of 
Amorgus. The Simonides of Ceos was the author of the celebrated inscription on the ton^b 
of the Spartans who fell at Thermopylae : — " Stranger, tell the Lacedmmonians that we arc 
lying here in obedience to their laws,'''' ./Egina, Salamis, Crete, Rhodes, &c., have been de- 
scribed in other parts of this work. See Index, p. 84G. 



ASIA MINOR. Map No. IV. 



Asia Minor, or Lesser Asia, a celebrated region of antiquity, embraced the great peuiiisula 
of Western Asia, about equal in area to that of Spain, and bounded north by the Black Sea, 
east by Armenia and the Euphrates, south by Syria and the Mediterranean, and west by the 
Euxine Sea or Archipelago. The divisions by which it is best known in history are the nine 
coast provinces, Cilicia, Pamphyiia, and Lycia, on the Mediterranean ; Caria, Lydia, and 
Mysia, on the ^gean ; Bithynia, Paphlagonia, and Pontus, on the Euxine ; and the four in- 
terior provinces, Galatia, Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Pisidia. All of these were, at times, inde- 
pendent kingdoms, and at others, dependent provinces. 

The most renowned of the early kingdoms of Asia Minor was that of Lydia, situate between 
the waters of the Hermus and the Maeander, and bounded on the east by Phrygia. Under the 
last of its kings, the famous Croesus, renowned for his wealth and munificence, the Lydian 
kingdom was extended so as to embrace the Grecian colonies on the Euxine coast, and nearly 
all Asia Minor as far as the Halys. On the overthrow of Crcesus by Cyrus the Persian, B, C. 
56(5, the Lydian kingdom was formed into three satrapies belonging to the Medo-Persian em- 
pire, under which it remained upward of two centuries. The Macedonian succeeded the Per- 
sian dominion, B. C. 331, from which time, during nearly two centuries, Asia Minor was subject 
to many vicissitudes consequent on the changing fortunes of Alexander's successors. During 
the century immediately preceding the Christian era, the western provinces of the peninsula 
fell successively into the hands of the Romans, under whom they formed what was called the 
proconsulship of Asia, (see Map No. IX.,) the same which the Greek writers of the Roman era 
call Asia Proper, and in which sense we find the word Asia used in the New Testament, 
(Acts, 2 : 9,) although in some passages Phrygia is spoken of as distinct from Asia. (Acts, 10 : C, 
and Revelations.) The decline of the Roman power exposed the peninsula to fresh invasions 
from the East ; and at the period of the first crusade the Mohammedans had spread over almost 
the whole peninsula. Asia Minor now constitutes a pachalick of Asiatic Turkey, under the 
name of J^atolia, or Anatolia— Si corruption of a Greek word, (aj/aroA??,) meaning the East, 
corresponding to the French word Levant. 

The Greek colonists of Asia Minor, who spread themselves along the coast from the Euxine 
to Syria, were at least equal, in commercial activity, refinement, and the cultivation of the arts, 
to their European brethren. Among the Grecian poets, philosophers, and historians of Asia 
Minor, we may mention, iu poetry, Homer, Ilesiod, Sappho, and Alcasus ; in philosophy, 
Thales, Pythag'oras, and Anaxag' oras ; and in history, Herod' otus, Ct6sias, and Dionysius of 
Halicaiuassus. Anatolia is now occupied by a mixed population of Turks and Greeks, Arme- 
nians and Jews ; besides wandering tribes of Kurds and Turcomans in the interior, engaged 
partly in pastoral, and partly in marauding occupations. 



No. IV, 



illlllW 




PERSIAN EMPIRE. Map No. V. 

Ancient Persia comprehended, in its utmost extent, all the countries between the river 
Indus and the Mediterranean, and from the Euxine and Caspian Seas to the Persian Gulf and 
Indian Ocean ; but in its more limited acceptation it denoted a particular province, bounded 
on the north by Media and ParLhia, on the east by Carmania, on the south by the Persian Gulf, 
and on the west by Susiana. (See Map.) This was the original seat of the conquerors of 
Asia. 

Great obscurity rests on the early history of the nations embraced within the limits of the 
Persian empire ; but about the middle of the sixth century B. C, Cyrus, supposed by some to 
have been grandson of Astyages, the last Median monarch, being elected leader of the Persian 
hordes, became, by their assistance, a powerful conqueror, at a time when the Median and 
Babylonian kingdoms were on the decline, and on their ruins founded the Persian empire, 
which properly dates from the capture of Babylon, B. C. 5:56. Cambyses, generally supposed 
to be the Ahasuerus of Scripture, succeeded Cyrus ; then followed the brief reign of the 
usurper Smerdis, after whom Darius Hyslaspes was elevated to the throne, 521 B. C. Darius was 
both a legislator and conqueror, and his long and successful reign exerted a powerful influence 
over the destinies of Western Asia. Under his rule the Persian empire attained its greatest 
extent. (See Map.) His vast realm he divided into twenty satrapies or provinces, and ap- 
pointed the tribute which each was to pay ; but his government was little more than an or- 
ganized system of taxation. The attempts of Darius to reduce Greece to his sway were de- 
feated at Marathon ; ,'B. C. 490 ;) and the mighty armament of Xerxes, his son and successor, 
was destroyed in the battles of Sal' amis, Platas'a, and Myc' ale. The Medo-Persian empire 
itself was finally overthrown by Alexander the Great, in the battle of Arbela, B. C. S.il. 

The Macedo-Grecian kingdom of Alexander succeeded to the vast Persian domains, with 
the additional provinces of Greece, Thrace, and Macedon — thus exceeding the Persian kingdom 
in extent. About the middle of the third century B. C, the Parthians, under Arsaces, one of 
their nobles, arose against the successors of Alexander, and established the Parthian empire, 
which, under its sixth monarch, Mithridates I., attained its highest grandeur -extending from 
the Euphrates to the Indus. (See Parthia, p. 179.) The Parthian empire lasted nearly four 
hundred and eighty years— from B. C. 250 to A. D. 226, at which latter period the Persians 
proper, taking advantage of the weakened state of the empire under the Seleacidse, rebelled, 
and founded a new dynasty, that of the Sassanid(s. (See Note, Persian History, p. 249.) The 
Persian empire under the Sassanidye continued until the year 636, when it was overthrown by 
the Moslems in the great battle of the Cadesiah. (See p. 249.) Persia then continued a province 
of the caliphs for more than two centuries, when the sceptre was wrested from them by the 
chief of a bandit tribe. After this period Persia was wasted, for many centuries, by foreign 
oppression and internal disorder, (see pp. 287 — 3 1 1 — 35 1,) when, toward the end of the sixteenth 
century, order was restored, and Persia again rose to distinction under the government of Shah 
Abbas, surnamed the Great, (p. 351.) 

The present kingdom of Persia is reduced to the limits of the ancient provinces of Peraia, 
Media, Carmania, Parthia, the country of the Matieni, and the southern coasts of the Caspian 
Sea. The Turkish territories extend some distance east of the Tigris ; Russia is in possession 
of the country between the Euxine or Black and Caspian Seas, embracing a part of Armenia ; 
and on the east the now independent but constantly changing kingdoms of Cabool and Belo- 
chistan embrace the ancient Bactria, India, and Gedrosia, together with parts of Margiana and 
Aria, (now eastern Khorassan,) and the country of the ancient Saranga3i. The present Persia 
has an area of four hundred and fifty thousand square miles, with a population of eight or ten 
millions. The most striking physical features of Persia are its chains of rocky mountains; its 
long arid valleys without rivers ; and its vast salt or sandy deserts. The po[)ulation is a mixture 
of the ancient Persian stock with Arabs and Turks. The language spoken is the Parsee,— 
simple in structure, and, like the French and English, having few inflections. The religion of 
the country is Mohammedanism (of the Sheah sect, or adherents of Ali,) which seems, how- 
ever, to be rapidly on the decline. 



No. V. 




PALESTINE. Map No. VI. 



A brief geographical account of Palestine has been already given on page 40: — uccounis 
of the Moabites, Canaaniles, Midianites, Pliilistines, Ammonites, — and of the Jordan, Jabesh- 
Gilead, Gilgal, Gath, Gilboa, Hebron, Tyre, Sidon, Joppa, Syria, Damascus, Rabbah, Edom, 
Samaria, Gaza, Bethoron, Momit Tabor, &,c., may be found by referring to tlie Index at the end 
of the volume. 

Joshua divided Palestine, or the Holy Land, among the twelve Israelilish tribes, whose 
localities may be learned from the accompanying map. The Children of Israel remained 
united under one government until the death of Solomon, when ten of the twelve tribes, under 
Jeroboam, rebelled against Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon. The tribe of Judah, 
with a part, and part only, of the liUlc clan of Benjamin, remained faithful to Rehoboam. 
From this time forward Judah and Israel were separate kingdoms, 'i'he dividing line was 
about ten miles north of Jerusalem, betv/een Jericho and Gibeah, — the former belonging to 
Israel, the latter to Judah. Edom, or Ldumea, and the possession of the capital, Jerusalem, 
therefore fell to Judah ; but four-fifths of the territory, and the sovereignty over the Moabiles, 
belonged to Israel. The Syrians (Aramites) and Ammonites, after this, were no longer under 
Bubjection. 

The history of Israel from the time of Jeroboam to the carrying away of the ten tribes 
captive to Assyria, (B. C. 721,) was a series of calamities and revolutions. The reigns of its 
seventeen princes average only fifteen years each ; and these seventeen kings belonged to seven 
different families, which were placed on the throne by seven sanguinary conspiracies. Witii 
the captivity, the history of the ten tribes ends. Josephus assures us that they never returned 
to their own laud. 

The history of Judah, after the revolt of the ten tribes, is little more than the history of a 
single town, Jerusalem. After the lapse of three hundred and eighty nine years Jerusalem was 
taken by Nebuchadnezzar, (B. C. 605, and afterwards, B. G. 587,) and Judea became tributary 
to tlie king of Babylon. The termination of the captivity of Judah, after a period of seveniy 
years, was the act of Cyrus, soon after the conquest of Babylon, B. C. 5.'?0; but it was a com- 
mon saying among the Jews, that "only the bran, that is, the dregs of tlie people, relumed \o 
Jerusalem, but that all the fine flour stayed behind at Babylon." At tlie time of the Persian 
conquest by Alexander, Judea, along with the rest of the Persian provinces, passed under Ihc 
Macedonian dominion. After tlie death of Alexander we find Palestine alternately subject to 
the kings of Syria and Egypt ; about the middle of the second century B. C, Judea was rendered 
independent by the jMaccabees, (pp. 112—114,) and in the year 63 B. C. it was conquered by 
Pompey, when it became a part of tlie Roman empire. (See p. 177.) 

Under the Roman dominion, Palestine was divided into five provinces, viz. : Ujiper and 
Lower Galilee, Samaria, Judea, and Peraja,— situated as follows : The divisions of Asher and 
Naplitali, (see Map,) embracing the country of the Sidonians, formed Upper Galilee ; — the 
tribes of Zebulun and Issachar, embracing the country of the Perizites, formed Lower Galilee ; 
—the half tribe of Manasseh west of the Jordan, and the tribe of Ephraim, embracing the 
country of the Hiviles, formed Samaria; — the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, and Simeon, em- 
bracing the countries of the Jebusiles, Amorit-es, Hittites, and Philistines, formed Judea ;— the 
tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseli east of the Jordan, embracing the 
countries of the Moabites and Ammonites, and the kingdom of Bashan, formed Per<ea. 

Palestine remained under the Roman dominion (part of the time under the Eastern or 
Greek empire) until the year C3!), when Omar conquered Jerusalem, (see p. 249 :) after being 
more than four hundred years subject to the Arabian caliphs, the country fell into the hands 
of tlie Turks, (see p. 268,) who proved more oppressive masters than any of their predecessors. 
Then followed the Crusades ; and about four hundred and sixty years after the conquest of 
Omar, the Holy city was rescued from the Moliamniedan yoke, (see p. 283 ;) but after a series 
of changes, in the year 1519 Jerusalem came finally into the hands of the Turks, whose flag has 
ever since floated over its sacred places. 

The inhabitants of Palestine are a mixture of various races — consisting of the descendants 
of the ancient inhabitants of the country, their Arab conquerors, Turks, Crusaders, wandering 
Bedouins, Kurds, &c., but all now equally naturalized, and distributed into various classes or 
tribes according to their several religious systems. 



hQ. VI. 



I ,ift\w'£Ws//rom -^S 



se'-iso' 



Jlcoorcli'm To Its 



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TJUBeniamiti 1 1 / 




NTONg.BR° SC. 



TURKEY IN EUROPE. Map No. VII. 

European Turkey, including Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, which are connected with 
the Porto only by the slenderest ties, is bounded on the north by Slavonia, Himgary, and 
Transylvania — divisions of the Austrian empire — from which it is separated by the Save, the 
Danube, and the eastern Carpathian mountains ; on the north-east it is separated from the 
Russian province of Bessarabia by the Pruth ; on the east it has the Black Sea, the Bosporus, 
the Sea of Marmora, and the Hellespont ; on the south the Archipelago and Greece; and on 
the west the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Austrian province of Dalmatia. Area of 
European Turkey about two hundred and ten thousand square miles ; population about fifteen 
millions. 

Tlie leading events in the history of European Turkey may be stated as follows : The ancient 
Byzanteum founded by Byzas the Megarean, B. C. 656 : — destroyed by Septimius Severus in hia 
contest with Niger, A. D. 196:— rebuilt by Coustantine, who gave it his own name, and 
made il the capital of the Roman empire, A. D. 323 :— captured in 1204 by the Crusaders, 
who retained it till 12G1 :— taken in 1453 by the Turks, who thus put an end to the Eastern or 
Greek empire, and firmly established their power in Europe. The Turkish arms continue to 
maintain their ascendency over those of Christendom until their check in 1683 by the famous 
John Sobieski, in the siege of Vienna. (See p. 389.) Then began the decline of the Ottoman 
power: it received a severe blow by the victories of Prince Eugene in 1697, (see p. 390;) since 
which period province after province has been dismembered from the empire, which, during 
the last century, has been saved from dissolution only by the mutual jealousies and animositiea 
of its Christian neighbors. 

The divisions by which European Turkey is best known in history are Rumilia, Bulgaria, 
P.Ioldavia, Wallachia, Servia, Bosnia, Turkish Croatia, Her^egovinn, Albania, Thessaly, and 
Macedonia, — for which, see the accompanying Map. Rmnilia, bordering on the Black Sea, the 
Sea of Marmora, and the Archipelago, containing the cities of Adrianople and Constantinople, 
and watered by the Maritza, the ancient Hebrus, is coterminous with the ancient Thrace, 
(p. 71.) Bulgaria^ separated from Rumilia by the Balkan range of mountains, having Sophia 
for its capital, and the Danube for its northern boundary, corresponds to the ancient Moesia 
Inferior, (p. 200.) Moldavia and Wallachia., separated from Transylvania by the Carpathian 
mountains, correspond to the ancient Dacia conquered by Trajan, (p. 200-3.) The inhabitants, 
descendants of the ancient DacJans, call themselves Ruumuni, or Romans. Servia, peopled by 
Slavonians — corresponding to the ancient Moesia Superior, formed an independent kingdom in 
the Middle Ages. It was conquered by the Turks in 1365 ; but since that period it has fre- 
quently rebelled against its Turkish masters. The internal government is now wholly in the 
hands of the Servians, who pay a small animal tribute to the sultan. Bosiiia, now a pachalic 
of Turkey, comprising also under its government Turkish Croatia and Hersegovina, and occu- 
pying the north-western extremity of the empire, was anciently included in I.ower Pannonia. 
In the Middle Ages it first belonged to the Eastern empire, and afterwards became a separate 
kingdom dependent upon Hungary. It was conquered by the Turks in 1480, after a war of 
seventeen years ; but it was not till 1522 that Solyman the Magnificent finally annexed it to 
the Turkish dominions. Albania., a large province bordering on the Adriatic, is nearly the 
eame as the ancient Epirus, (p. 44.) Thessaly and Macedonia preserve their ancient names 
and limits. 

CoNSTANTiNOPLK, the Capital of the Turkish dominions, occupies a triangular promontory 
near the eastern extremity of the province of Ruinilia, at the junction of the Sea of Marmora 
with the Thracian Bosporus. It is separated from its extensive suburbs Galata, Pera, &c., on 
the north, by the noble harbor called the Golden Horn. Like Rome, Constantinople wa3 
originally built on se\ en liills. The city is about thirtten miles in circuit— comprises an area 
©f about two thousand acres — and has a population, exclusive of its suburbs, of about five 
hundred thousand. The seraglio, containing the palace, mint, arsenal, public ofliccs, &c., 
nccupies the site of the ancient Byzanteum, (see p. 218,) at the apex of the triangle. It is about 
three miles in circuit, and is entirely surrounded by walls. The Bosporus, or Channel of Con- 
Btantinople, is about seventeen miles in length, with a width varying from half a mile to two 
miles. The channel is deep ; the banks abrupt, with stately cliffs ; and the adjacent country is 
unrivalled for beauty. 



No. VII. 




ANCIENT ITALY. Map No. VIII. 

A:;ciENT Italy was called by Ihe Greeks Hesperia, from its western situalioii in relation to 
Greece ; and from the Latin poets it received the names Ausonia, Sulurnia, and ffinotria. {See 
also p. 1-2;?.) About the time of Aristotle, (B. C. 380,) the Greeks divided Italy into six countries 
or regions, — Ausonia or Opica, Tyrrheuia, lapygia, Ombria, Liguria, and Henelia ; but the di- 
visions by which it is best known in Roman history are those given on the accompanying 
Map,— Cisalpine Gaul, Etruria, Umbria, Picenum, the country of the Sabines, Latium, Cam- 
pania, Sanmium, Apulia, Calabria, Lucania, and Brutiorum Ager. 

Cisalpine Oaul, or Oaul this side of the Jilps, embracing all northern Italy beyond the 
Rubicon, was inhabited by Gallic tribes, which, as early as six hundred years B. C, began to 
j>our over the Alps into this extensive and fertile territory. Etruria^ embracing the country 
west and north of the Tiber, was inhabited by a nation which had attained to an advanced de- 
gree of civilization before the founding of Rome. Umbria embraced the country east of 
Etruria, from the Rubicon on the north to the river Nar, which separated it from the Sabine 
territory on the south. Picenum, inhabited by the Picentes, was a country ou the Adriatic, 
having the river ^sis on the north, the Matrinus on the south, and on the west the Apennines, 
which separated it from Umbria, The Country of the Sabines, at the period when it was 
marked out with the greatest clearness and precision, was separated from Latium by the river 
Anio, from Elniria by the Tiber, from Umbria by the Nar, and from Picenum by the central 
ridge of tl'.e Apennines. (See also Map No. X.) jMtium was south of Etruria and the 
country of the Sabines, from which it was separated by the Tiber and the Anio. Campania, 
separated from Latium by the river Liris, was called the garden of Itwly. The Campanian 
nation conquered by the Romans was composed of Oscans, Tuscans, Samnites, and Greeks ; the 
latter having formed numerous colonies in southern Italy. Samniuin, the country of the Samnites, 
bordered on the Adriatic, having Picenum ou the north, Apulia on the south, and Latium and 
Campania on tlie west. The ambitious and warlike Samnites not unfrequently brought into 
the field a A)rce of eighty thousand foot and eight thousand horse. .■Apulia, inhabited by the 
early Daunii, Peucetii, and Messapii, bordered on the Adriatic on the east ; and, on the west, 
on the territories of the Samnites, the Campanians, and Lucanians. Calabria, called also by 
the Greeks lapygia, embraced the south-eastern extremity of tlie Italian peninsula, answering 
ne:irly to what is now called Terra di Otranto. Lucania, inhabited by the' warlike Lucani, 
who carried on a successful wiir with the Greek colonies of southern Italy, was separated 
from Apulia and Calabria on the north-east by the Bradanus. Brutiorum ^'3gcr, the Country 
of the Brutii, comprised the southern extremity of the peninsula, now CiiUed Calabria Ultra. 
The Brutii, the most barbarous of the Italian tribes, were reduced by the Ronuius soon after 
the withdrawal of Pyrrhus from Italy. 

Since the downfall of the Roman empire Italy has never been unitei.1 in one Slate. After 
having been successively possessed by the Heruli, Ostrogoths, Greeks, and Lombards, Charle- 
mngne annexed it to the empire of tlie Franks in 774: from 8^*8 till the establishment of the 
republic of iMilan in 1150, it generally belonged, with the exception of the territory of the Ve- 
netians, to the German en>perors. in 1535, Milan, then a duchy, came into the possession of 
the emperor Charles V. Since the war of the Spanish succession, Ihe duchies of Milan and 
Mantua have generally belonged to Austria, with the exception of the short lime they formed 
a part of the Cisalpine republic and the French empire. Venice was a republic from the 
seventh century till 1797. it was conlirnied to x\ustria by the treaty of 1815. The present 
Italian Stales are the king»lom of Lombardy and Venice, forming a part of the Austrian empire 
— kingdom of Sardinia — kingdom of Naples aiid Sicily — Grand-duchy of Tuscany— States of 
the Church — Duchies of Parma, iNIodena, and Lucca — and the little republic of San-Marino. 

The French rule in Italy was a great blessing to that unhappy country ; " but the coalition," 
says Sismondi, "destroyed all the good conferred by France." The state of the people con- 
trasts very dis;idvantageously with the fertility of the soil and the beauiy of the climate. 

"How has kind Heav'n adora'd the happy land, And Tyranny usurps her happy plains? 
And scattered blessings with a wasletul hand ! The poor inhabitant beholds in vain 
But what avail her unexhausted stores. The redd'ning orange and the swelling grain, 

lier blooming mountains and hersuntiy shores, -Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines, > 
With all the gifts that Heav'n and earth imparl, And in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines : — 
The smiles of nature and the charms of art, Starves, in the midst of nalures's bounty curst, 
While proud Oppression in her valleys reigns, And in the laden vineyard'dies for thirst." 



No. VIII. 



':^ 



JOl 



iZl 



14.1 



J61_ 



18 



.go\ 






y^rt-idenT. 



WtMTieKeiyliboring Cmmtri^s 
Scalene Miles. 




THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Map No. IX. 

Regal Rome, or Rome under the Kings, occupying a period of about two hundred and forty 
years, from the founding of the city, 753 B. C, to the overthrow of royalty, 510 B. C, ruled over 
only a narrow strip of seacoast, from the Tiber southward to Terracina, an extent of about seventy 
miles, (see Map No. X ;) but it already carried on an extensive commerce with Sardinia, Sicily, 
and Carthage. 

Republican Rome, occupying a period of about four hundred and eighty years, from the 
overthrow of royalty 510 B. C. to the accession of Augustus, 28 B. C, extended the Roman do- 
minion, not only over all Italy, but also over all the islands of the Mediterranean— over Egypt, 
and all Northern Africa from Egypt westward to the Atlantic Ocean— over Syria and all Asia 
Minor— over Thrace, Achaia or Greece, Macedonia, and Illyricum— and over all Gaul, and most 
of Spain. 

Imperial Rome occupies a period of about five hundred years, extending from the accession 
of Augustus, 28 B. C, to the overthrow of the Western empire of the Romans, A. D. 47G. 
Under Augustus, the Roman dominion was extended by the conquest of Masia, corresponding 
to the present Turkish provinces of Bulgaria and Servia — of Pa?) no7ija, corresponding to the 
eastern part of southern Austria, and Hungary south of the Danube, Styria, Austrian Croatia, 
and Slavonia, and the northern part of Bosnia— of JVoricunu corresponding to the Austrian 
Salzburg, western Styria, Carinlhia, Austria north to the Danube, and a small part of south- 
eastern Bayana—RhcBtia^ extending over the country of the Tyrol and eastern Switzerland— 
and Vindelicia, corresponding to southern Wirtemberg and Bavaria south of the Danube. 
(See also Maps Nos. VII. and XVIf.) On the death of Augustus, therefore, the Roman empire 
was bounded by the Rhine and the Danube on the north ; by the Euphrates on the east ; by 
the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa on the sqjfth ; and by the Atlantic Ocean on the west. 

The southern part of Britain, or Brittania, was reduced by Ostorius, in the reign of Claudius ; 
and Agricola, in the reign of Domitian, extended the Roman dominion to the Frith of Forth, 
and the Clyde. With this exception, the empire continued within the limits given it by 
Augustus, until the accession of Trajan, who, iu the year 105, added to it Dacia, a region north 
of the Danube, and corresponding lo Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, and all Hungary east 
of the Theiss and north of the Danube. Trajan also, in his eastern expedition, descended the 
T.^ris, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf, and for a brief period extended the 
sway of Rome over Colchis, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and even the Parthian 
monarch accepted his crown from the hands of the emperor. In the time of Trajan, therefore, 
who died A. D. 117, the Roman empire attained its greatest extent,— being, at that period, 
the greatest monarchy the world has ever known,— extending in length more than three thou- 
sand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates, and more than two thousand in breadth, 
from the northern limits of Dacia to the deserts of Africa, — and embracing an area of sixteen 
hundred thousand square miles of the most fertile laud on the face of the globe. Well might 
it be called the Roman World. 

Adrian, or Hadrian, the successor of Trajan, voluntarily began the system of retrenchment 
which was forced upon his successors. In order to preserve peace on the frontiers he aban- 
doned all the conquests of his predecessor except Dacia, and bounded the eastern provinces by 
the Euphrates. The unity of this mighty empire was first broken by the division into Eastern 
and Western in the year 305. In the year 476 the Western Empire fell under the repeated 
attacks of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the most polished na- 
tions of Europe. The Eastern Empire survived nearly a thousand years longer, but finally fell 
under the power of the Turks, who took Constantinople, its capital, in the year 1453, and mada 
It the capital of the Ottoman empire. 



No. IX. 




ANCIENT ROME. Map No. X. 

In describing Ancient Rome our attention is first directed to the relative localities of the 
Seven Hills on which Rome was originally built— the Aventine, Coelian, Palatine, Esquiline, 
Cupitoline, Viminal, and Quirinal— all included within the walls of Servius Tullius, built about 
the year 550 B. C. About two hundred and eighty years later the emperor Aurelian commenced 
the erection of a new wall, which was completed by Probus five years afterward. The cir- 
cumference of the Servian town was about six miies ; that given it by the wall of Aurelian, 
which extended to the right bank of the Tiber, and inclosed a part of the Janiculan mount, 
was about twelve ; although the city extended far beyond the limits of the latter. The modern 
rampart surrounds, substantially, the same area as that of Aurelian. 

The greater part of Modern Rome covers the flat surface of the Campus Martius, the Capi- 
toline and Quirinal mounts, and the right bank of the Tiber from Hadrian's Mausoleum, (now 
the Castle of St. Angelo,) south to and including the Janiculan mount. The ancient city of the 
Seven Hills is nearly all contained within the old walls of Servius. Almost the whole of this 
area, with the exception of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills, is now a wide waste of piles of 
shattered architecture rising amid vineyards and rural lanes, exhibiting no tokens of habitation 
except a few mouldering convents, villas, and cottages. 

Beginning our survey at the Capitoline hill, on whicJi once stood the famous temple of Jupiter 
Capitolinus, we find there no vestiges of ancient grandeur, save about eighty feet of what are 
believed to have been the foundations of the temple. At the northern extremity of the hill 
we still discern the fatal Tarpeian Rock, surrounded by a cluster of old and wretched hovels, 
while ruins encumber its base to the depth of twenty feet. 

The open space between the Capitoline, Esquiline, and Palatine hills, is covered by relics of 
ancient buildings interspersed among modern churches and a few paltry streets. Here was 
the Great Roman Forum— n large space surrounded by and filled with public buildings, temples, 
Btatues, arches, &c., nearly all of which have disappeared ; and the surface pavement on which 
they stood is now covered with their ruins to a depth of from fifteen to thirty feet. The space 
which the Forum occupied has been called, until recently, Campo Vaccine, or the Field of 
Cows ; and it is in reality a market place for sheep, pigs, and cattle. 

In early limes there was a little lake between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. In time this 
was converted into a marsh ; and the most ancient ruin which remains to us, the Cloaca, 
Maxima, or great drain, built by the Tarquins, was designed for carrying off its waters. This 
drain, still performing its destined service, opens into the Tiber with a vault fourteen feet in 
height and as many in width. The beautiful circle of nineteen Corinthian columns near the 
Tiber, around the church of Santa Maria, has been usually styled the Temple of Vesta — sup- 
posed to belong to the age of the Antonines. 

On the Palatine hill Augustus erected the earliest of the Palaces of the Cmsars ; Claudius ex- 
tended them, and joined the Palatine to the Capitoline by a bridge ; and towards the northern 
point of the Palatine, Nero built his " Golden House," fronted by a vestibule in which stood 
the emperor's colossal statue. The Aventine rises from the river steep and bare, surmounted 
by a solitary convent. On the Coelian are remains of the very curious circular Temple of 
Faunus, built by Claudius. Southward are. the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, occupying a 
surface equal to one-sixteentii of a square mile. The building, or range of buildings, was im- 
mense, — containing four magnificent temples dedicated to Apollo, ^sculapius, Hercules, and 
Bacchus,— a grand circular vestibule, v.'ith baths on each side for cold, tepid, warm, and sea- 
bathing — in the centre an immense square for exercise — and beyond it a noble hall with sixteen 
hundred marble seats for the bathers, and, at each end of the hall, libraries. On each side of the 
building was a court surrounded by porticoes, with an odeum for music, and, in the middle, 
a spacious basin for swimming. There was also a gymnasium for running, wrestling, &c., and 
around the whole a vast colonnade opening into spacious halls where the poets declaimed, and 
philosophers gave lectures to their auditors. But the immense halls are now roofless, and the 
wind sighs through the aged trees that have taken root in the pavements. 

South of the Palatine was the Circus Maximus, which is said to have covered the spot 
where the games were celebrated when the Romans seized the Sabine women. It was more 
than two thousand feet in length, and, in its greatest extent, contained seats for two hundred 



Ho. X. 




r ruisxii] 



H/lrij 



584 

uml sixty thousand spectators. We can still trace its shape, but the structure has entirely dis- 
appeared. 

In the open space eastward of the Great Forum stands the Coliseuvi or Flavian Mviphi' 
theatre, the boast of Rome and of the world. This gigantic edifice, which was begun by Ves- 
pasian and completed by Titus, is in form an ellipse, and covers an area of about five and 
n-half acres. The external elevation consisted of four stories, — each of the three lower stories 
having eighty arches supported by half columns, Doric in the first range, Ionic in the second, 
and Corinthian in the third. The wall of the fourth story was faced with Corinthian pilasters, 
and lighted by forty rectangular windows. Tlie space surrounding the central elliptical arena 
was occupied with sloping galleries resting on a huge mass of arches, and ascending towards 
the summit of the external wall. One hundred and sixty staircases led to the galleries. A 
movable awning covered the whole, with the exception of the Podium, or covered gallery for 
the emperor and persons of high rank. Within the area of the Coliseum, gladiators, martyrs, 
slaves, and wild beasts, combated on the Roman festivals ; and here the blood of both men 
and animals flowed in torrents to furnish amusement to the degenerate Romans. The Coliseum 
is now partially in ruins ; scarcely a half presents its original height ; the uppermost gallery 
has disappeared ; the second range is much broken ; the lowest is nearly perfect ; but the 
Podium is in a very ruinous state. From its enormous mass " walls, palaces, half cities have 
been reared ;" but Benedict XIV. put a stop to its destruction by consecrating the whole to the 
majtyrs whose blood had been spilled there. In the middle of the once bloody arena stands a 
crucifix ; and around this, at equal distances, fourteen altars, consecrated to diflierent saints, are 
erected on the dens once occupied by wild beasts. 

The principal ruins on the Esquiline, a part of them extending their intricate corridors on the 
heights overlooking the Coliseum, have been called the Baths and tlie Palace of Titus; but 
although it is evident that baths constituted a part of their plan, the design of the whole is not 
known. What is called the Temple of Minerva Medica, in a garden near the eastern walls, is a 
decagonal ruin, supposed to belong to the age of the Antonines. The Baths of Diocletiav, on 
the Virainal mount, appear to have resembled, in their general arrangement, those of Caracalla. 
Still farther to the north-east are the remains of the camp erected by Sejanus, the minister of 
Tiberius, for the Praetorian guards. In the beautiful gardens of the historian Sallust, on the 
eastern declivity of the Pincian mount, are the remains of a temple and circus, supposed to 
belong either to the Augustan age, or to the last days of the Republic. On the western ascent 
of the thickly-peopled Quirinal, whose heights are crowned by the palace and gardens of the 
pope, are extensive ruins of walls, vaults, and porticoes, belonging to the baths of Constantine. 
They are now surrounded by the beautiful gardens of the Colonna palace. Farther south, be- 
tween the Quirinal and Capiloline, some striking remains of the Forums of Nerva and Trajan 
are still visible. 

Of tlie numerous ruins in the Campus Martius, we have room for only a brief notice. Of the 
Theatre of Marcellus, eleven arches of the exterior walls still remain. Of the Theatre of 
Pompey, the foundation arches may be seen in the cellars and stables of the Palazzio Pio. The 
Flaminian Circus and the Circus .6gonalis are entirely in ruins. The Column of .flntoninus 
and the Tomb of Augustus are still standing, with their summits much lowered. 

Tlie Pantheon, the most perfect of all the remains of ancient Rome, is a temple of a circular 
form, built by Agrippa. It was dedicated to Jupiter the Avenger, but besides the statue of 
this god, it contained those of the other heathen deities, formed of various materials — gold, 
silver, bronze, and marble. The portico of this temple is one hundred and ten feet long by 
forty-four in depth, and is supported by sixteen Corinthian columns, each of the shafts con- 
sisting of a single piece of Oriental granite, forty-two feet in height. The bases and capital are 
of white marble. The main building consists of a vast circular drum, with niches flanked by 
columns, above which a beautifid and perfectly preserved cornice runs round the whole build- 
ing. Over a second story, formed by an attic sustaining an upper cornice, rises, to the height 
of one hundred and forty-three feet, the beautiful dome, which is divided internally into square 
panels supposed to have been originally inlaid with bronze. A circular aperture in the dome 
admits the only light which the place receives. Tiie consecration of this temple (A. D. 608) as 
a Christian church, has preserved, for the admiration of the moderns, this most beautiful of 
heathen fanes. Cliristian altars now fill the recess where once stood the most famous statuea 
of the gods of the heathen world. 



No. XI. 




CHART OF THE WORLD. Map No. XI. 

Map No. XI. is a Chart of the World on Mercator's projection— a Chart of History, ex- 
hibiting tlie world as linown to Europeans at the period of the discovery of America— and a 
Chart of Isothermal lines, or Jines of equal heat, showing the comparative mean annual tem- 
perature of different parts of the Earth's surface. 

It will be observed that General History, previous to the discovery of America, is confined 
to a small portion of the Earth's surface ; as represented by the light portions of the Chart ; 
while the whole Western Continent and Greenland, most of Africa and Asia, and their islands, 
and parts of Northern Europe and Iceland, were unknown to Europeans, and in the darkness 
of barbarism. It would seem, therefore, that the history of the World has but just com- 
menced. 

The Isothermal lines show that the temperature of a place does not depend wholly upon its 
latitude. Thus the southern limit of perpetually frozen ground in the northern hemisphere (at 
a mean annual temperature of thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit) follows aline ranging from below 
fiffy-ilve degrees of latitude to above seventy. The mean annual temperature of London, at 
fifty-one and a-half degrees north latitude, is fifty degrees of Fahrenheit, the same as that of 
Philadelphia, which is eleven and a-half degrees of latitude farther soutli. The line of greatest 
heat, (at a mean annual temperature of eighty-two and four-tenths degrees of Fahrenheit,) is more 
than ten degrees of latitude north of the Equator in South America, in Africa, and southern 
Hindostan ; and about eight degrees south of the Equator in a part of the Indian Ocean be- 
tween Borneo and Hew Holland. The sea is, generally, considerably warmer in winter than 
the land, and cooler in summer. Continents and large islands are found to be warmer on their 
western sides than on the eastern. The extremes of temperature are experieaced chiefly in 
large inland tracts, and little felt in small islands remote from continents. Had the Arctic 
regions been entirely of land, the intense heat of summer and the cold of winter Avould have 
been equally fatal to animal life. 



BATTLE GROUNDS OP THE AVARS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 
AND THE AVARS OF NAPOLEON. Map No. XII. 

The wars growing out of the French Revolution, of which those of Napoleon were a con- 
tinuation, embrace a period of nearly twenty-three years, from the defeat of the Austrians at 
Jemappes on the 17th of November, 1792, to the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on the 18tli 
of June, 1815. 

The accompanying Map presents at a glance the vast theatre on which were exhibited the 
thousand Scenes in this mighty Drama of human suffering. The thickly-dotted Spanish penin- 
sula may be regarded as one great battle-field, where Frenchman, Spaniard, Portuguese, ami 
Briton, sank in the death struggle together. Those dark spots where the " pealing drum," the 
"waving standards," and the "trumpets clangor," invited to slaughter, cluster thickly around 
the eastern boundaries of France, including Belgium and northern Italy ;— tliey are seen in 
far-off Egypt and Palestine, recalling Napoleon's dreams of Eastern conquest ; and they strew 
the route to Moscow, where, from the fires of the Kremlin, and amid the snows of a Russian 
winter, the French eagles commenced a lasting retreat. 

As we look over this vast gladiatorial arena of frantic, struggling Life, and agonizing Death, 
our thoughts naturally turn from its mingled horrors and glories to rest upon the commanding 
genius, — the wizard spirit, — of him " who rode upon the whirlwind and directed the storm" — 
of him whom Byron well describes as a mighty Gambler, 

"Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were thrones, 
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones." 

But the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, with all the suffering whicli they oc- 
casioned, have not been unattended with useful results in urging forward the march of European 
civilization. The moral character of Napoleon, the most prominent actor in the drama, has 
been variously drawn by friends and foes; but the towering height, the lightning-like rnpidity, 
and the brilliancy, of his genius, have never been questioned by his most bitter rovilers. 



No. XII. 




FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL. Map No. XIII. 

France, (ancient Qaul,) bordering on three seas, and being enclosed by natural boundaries 
on all sides except the north-east, where her natural limits are the Rhine, is admirably situated 
for a commanding influence in European affairs ; and, besides, her large population, the active 
spirit of her people, the fertility of her soil, and the amenity of her climate, place her among 
tlie foremost of the great nations of the earth in power and resources. 

When first known to the Romans, Gaul was divided between the Belgae, the CcUse, and the 
Aquitani ; the Belgfe or Pelgiaus between the Seine and Lower Rhine ;— the Celts between the 
Seine and Garonne ; and the Aquitani between the Garonne and Pyrenees ; but the Romans, 
under Augustus, made four divisions of Gaul ;— Belgica, in the north-east ;—Lugdunensis, be- 
tween the Seine and Loire ;— Aquitania, between the Loire and Pyrenees ;— and Narbonensis, in 
the south-east. 

None of the barbarian tribes of Europe passed through a more agitated or brilliant career 
than the ancient (Jauls, the ancestors of the French people. They burned Rome, conquered 
Macedonia, forced Thermopylae, pillaged Delphi, besieged Carthage, and established the empire 
of Galatia in Asia Minor ; but, after a centmy of partial conflicts, and nine years of general 
war with Cjesar, they yielded to the overshadowing power of Rome. When Rome fell, Gaul 
was overrun by the Germanic nations : then came the beginning of the empire of the Franks— 
the eucroacluneiUs and defeat of the Saracens— tbe vast empire of Charlemagne— and then the 
increasing power of the feudal nobility, until, in the year 937, the last of the Carlovingian 
princes possessed only the town of Laon ! Under Hugh Capet even, dukes, counts, and minor 
seigneurs, shared among themselves nearly all of the modern kingdom. But by degrees the 
great fiefs, one after another, fell to the crown ; and before the close of the seventeenth century 
all France was united imdcr one monarchy in the person of Louis XIV. 

Thus, with her history, the geography of France has been continually changing ; but those 
divisions of her territory best known in general history are the old Provinces, as given on the 
accompanying Map. These provinces, during the Middle Ages, were all either duchies or 
minor seignories ruled by the feudal nobility ; and their history is, therefore, virtually, for a 
long period, tliat of separate kingdoms. (See description of Provence, Brittany, Normandy, 
Aquitaine, Burgundy, Roussillon, &C., pp. 300, 371-2, 379.) 

At the period of the French Revolution the thirty-three provincial divisions were abolished, 
and France was then divided into eighty-six Departments or Prefectures ; these into three 
Imndred and sixty-three Arroudissements ; these into two tliousand eight hundred and forty-five 
Cantons ; and these latter into thirty-eight thousand six hundred and twenty-three Communes. 

Spain, anciently Hispania, a name given to the entire peninsula beyond the Pyrenees, was 
not fully conquered by the Romans till the time of Augustus, who made three divisions of the 
country ;— 3s!, Bmtica^ in the south of Spain, embracing the more modern province of Anda- 
lusia ;— 2d, Lusitania, embracing all Portugal south of the Douro, and, in addition, most of 
Estremadura and Salamanca ;— and, 3d, Tarraconensis, embracing the remainder, and greatef 
portion, of the peninsula. 

A.bout the time of the subversion of the Western empire of the Romans, Spain was overrun 
by the Vandals, and other Gotiiic tribes; and, a century later, the Christianized Visigoths estab- 
lished their supremacy in every part of the peninsula. At the begimiing of the eighth century 
the Moors from Africa overran the whole country, but after their defeat by Charles Martel in 
France, (see p. 253,) the Christians began to make head against them, founded the kingdom 
of Leon about the middle of the eighth century, and, from that period, gradually extended 
their power until, in 1492, Granada, the last Moorish kingdom, yielded to the arms of Ferdinand 
of Aragon, and, soon after, the whole Spanish peninsula was united under one government. 
In 1139 Portugal became an independent kingdom: from J5S0 to 1640 it was a Spanish 
province; but at the latter period it regained its independence. For historical accounts of 
Navarre, Aragon, Castile, Leon, and Granada, aae p. 317,— Portugal, 318. 



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SWITZERLAND; DENMARK, AND PARTS OF NORWAY AND 
SWEDEN. Map No. XIV. 

As a brief outline of the history of Switzerland has already been given on page 'J69, and 
of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, on page 3(i8, we shall here confine our attention princi- 
pally to the physical geography, government, population, &c., of those countries. 

Switzerland is a republic formed by the union of twenty-two confederated States or 
cantons, whose total area is about fifteen thousand square miles, or about one-third of that of 
the State of New York. Population, about two millions two hundred thousand, of whom 
nearly two-thirds are Protestants. More than half of the Swiss people speak a German dialect : 
about four hundred and fifty thousand speak French ; and about one hundred and twenly-five 
thousand a corrupt Italian. 

The greater portion of Switzerland consists of mountains ; and the geographical appearance 
of the country has, not improperly, been compared to a large town, of which the valleys are 
tlie streets, and the mountains groups of contiguous houses. Both the Rhine and the Rhone, 
and several other important rivers, have their sources in Switzerland ; but the Aar drains tlie 
greater part of the country, passes through the lakes of Brienz and Thun, and, after a course 
of about one hundred and seventy miles, unites with the Rhine. The lakes of Switzerland are 
numerous— all navigable— and remarkable for the depth and purity of their waters, and their 
great variety of fish. Lakes Thun and Brienz are nineteen hmidred feet above the level of the 
sea— the lakes of Geneva and Constance about twelve hundred. Not only is Switzerland much 
colder than the adjacent countries, owing to its elevation, and the influence of its glaciers in 
cooling the atmosjjhere, but the cold has increased in modern times, and many tracts are now 
bare that were formerly covered with forests and pasture grounds. 

The kingdom of Denmark, properly so called, comprises only Jutland, or the northern half 
of the ancient Cimbric Chersonese, together with the islands between Jutland and Sweden, and 
the island of Bornholm in the Baltic. To these possessions have been added the duchies of 
Sleswick and Holstein, which originally formed part of the German empire ; and as sovereign 
of which the Danish king now ranks as a member of tlie Germanic confederation. Iceland, 
part of Greenland, the Faroe isles, and some possessions in the East and West Indies, also bo- 
long to Denmark. 

The surface of the Danish peninsula is remarkably low and level ; and along the wholo 
western coast of Sleswick and Hol-tein the country is defended, as in Holland, against irruptions 
from the sea, by immense mounds or dikes. The soil is various, but, generally, very fertile. 
There are no mountains, and no rivers of any magnitude ; but the inlets of the sea are numer- 
ous, and penetrate fsu" inland. Since the year 16(30 the government has been perhaps as abso- 
lute a monarchy as any other in the world ; but the sovereigns have generally exercised their 
extensive powers with great moderation. The Lutheran is the established religion. Population 
but little more than two millions. 

The kingdom of Sweden comprises, with Norway and Lapland, the whole of the Scandi- 
navian peninsula, west of the Baltic. Sweden is, in general, a level, well-watered country, but 
the soil is poor. Sweden extends so far north that, near Tornea, the sun is visible, at mid- 
summer, during the whole night. The government of Sweden is a hereditary monarchy, with 
ji representative diet consisting of four chambers, formed, respectively, of deputies from the 
nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants, or cultivators. 

Norway, forming the western part of the great Scandinavian peninsula, is a mountainous 
country, and is characterized by its lofty mountain plateau in the interior, and the deep in- 
dentations or arms of the sea all round the coast. Although Norway is under the same crown 
with Sweden, it is, in reality, little connected with the latter country. Its democratic assembly, 
called the Storthing, meets for three months once in three years, by its own right, and not by 
any writ from the king. If a bill pass both divisions of this assembly in three successive 
storthings, it becomes a law of the land without the royal assent— a right which no other 
monarchieo-legislative assembly in Europe possesses. 



No XIV. 




THE NETHERLANDS, NOW EMBRACED IN THE KINGDOMS OF 
HOLLAND AND BELGIUM. Map No. XV. 

Nearly the whole kingdom of Holland, (often mentior.ed in history as the "Low Countries,") 
with the exception of a low insignificant hill ranges, is a continuous flat— a highly fertile 
country — in great part coiiquered by human labor from the sea, which, at high tide, is above 
the level of a considerable portion of the surrounding country. The latter is at all times 
liable to dangerous inundations. Where there are no natural ramparts against tlie sea, enormous 
artificial mounds or dikes have been constructed ; but these are sometimes broken down by 
the force of the waves. That extensive arm of the sea called the Zuyder Zee, occupying an 
area of about twelve hundred square miles, was formed by successive inundations in the 
course of the thirteenth centm-y. The surface of the country presents an immense network 
of canals, the greater number being appropriated to the purposes of drainas^e. When the sea 
is once shut out by the dikes the marsh is intersected by water courses ; and wind-mills, erect- 
ed on the ramparts, are employed to force up the water. Sometimes the marsh is so far below 
tlie level of the sea- even twenty-five or thirty feet below the highest tides — that two or more 
ramparts and mills, at different elevations, are requisite. There is no other country where 
nature has done so little, and man so much, as this. The north and v/est provinces of Belgium 
are very similar in their flatness, fertility, dikes, and canals, to IloUand. 

r:oldsmith's description of Holland is peculiarly appropriate. 

" To men of other minds my fancy flies. Spreads its long arms around the watery roar, 

Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies: Scoops out an empire and usurps the shore: 

i^lethiuks her patient sons before me stand, While the pent ocean, rising o'er the pile, 

Where the broad ocean leans against the land ; Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile. 

And, sedulous to stop the coming tide, The slow canal, the yellow-blossom'd vale, 

Lift the tall ramparts artificial pi ide. The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail, 

Onward, methinks, and diligently slow, The crowded mart, the cultivated plain, 

The firm compacted bulwark seems to grow ; A new creation rescued from his reign." 

Holland and Belgium were partially subjected by the Romans : in the second century Ho^ 
land was overrun by the Saxons : in the eighth both were conquered by Charles Martel ; and they 
subsequently formed a part of the dominions of Charlemagne. From the tenth to the fifteenth 
century they were divided into many petty sovereignties, most of which successively passed 
into the possession of the house of Burgundy, thence to that of Austria, and, about the middle 
of the sixteenth century, the whole fell under the rule of Charles V., king of Spain and em- 
peror of Germany. The arbitrary mea.sures of Philip H. of Spain, the son and successor of 
<;harles V., led to a general rebellion in the Netherlands : the indpendence of the " Republic 
of the United Provinces," embracing the States of Holland, was acknowledged by Spain in 
161)9, while the ten southern provinces, which had either remained loyal to Spain or been kept 
in subjection, had in the meantime passed under the sovereignty of the house of Austria. 
From this period the southern provinces have been generally distinguished by the name of 
Belgium. After having been several times conquered by the French, and recovered from them, 
they were incorporated, in 1795, with the French republic, and divided into departments. In 
180G the republic of Holland was erected into a kingdom for Louis, a brother of Napoleon ; 
and on the downfall of the latter, the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, united Holland and Belgium 
to form the kingdom of the Netherlands, which latter, by the Revolution of 1830, was dissolved 
into the present kingdoms of Holland and Belgium. A portion of Luxembourg, entirely de- 
tached from the rest of the Dutch dominions, belongs to Holland. 

Of the inhabitants of Holland, numbering about two millions six hundred thousand, about 
two millions are Dutch, who speak what is called the Low Dutch, as distinguished from the 
High Dutch or German— the two great divisions of the Dutch or Teutonic language. The popu- 
lation of Belgium numbers about four millions three hundred thousand, divided among three 
principal races, — the Germanic, which comprehends the Flemings and Germans ; the Gallic, 
to which belong the Walloons, who speak a dialect of the ancient French ; and the Semitic, 
which comprehends only the Jews. The French language is used in public aflivirs, and by all 
the educated and wealthy classes. 



No. XV. 




GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. Map No. XVI. 

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland consists of the islands Great Britain 
and Ireland, the former including the once independent kingdoms of England and ScoUaud, 
and the whole constituting not only the nucleus and the centre, but also the main body and 
seat, of the wealth and power of the British Empire. The colonies and foreign dependencies 
belonging to the United Kingdom are of great extent and importance, consisting principally of the 
British possessions in North America, the West Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and 
the East Indies. The British East India possessions alone embrace an area of one million two 
hundred thousand square miles. It is doubtless the common opinion that the United Kingdom 
is indebted to its territorial possessions for a large portion of its wealth and power ; but many 
able writers have come to the conclusion that these colonies and dependencies occasion an 
enormous outlay of expense without any equivalent advantage, and that they are a source of 
weakness rather than of strength. 

No country ever existed more favorably situated for the centre of a mighty empire than the 
United Kingdom, Its insular situation gives it a well defended frontier, rendering the country 
comparatively secure from hostile attacks, and affording unequalled facilities for commerce ; 
while its soil enjoys the fortunate medium between fertility and barreimess that excludes in- 
dolence on the one hand, and poverty on the other. Its harbors are numerous and excellent: 
its principal rivers, the Thames, Trent, and Severn in England, and the Shannon in Ireland, 
are all navigable to a very great distance: iron is found in the greatest abundance: its tin 
mines of Devon and Cornwall are the most productive of any in Europe : its salt springs and siill 
beds are alone suflOlcient for the supply of the whole world ; and its inexhaustible coal mines, 
the principal source and fomidation of its manufacturing and commercial prosperity, are more 
valuable than would have been the possession of all the gold and silver mines in the world. 
But England has an enormous public debt: her government is very expensive; and con- 
sequently, with all her wealth and prosperity, the burdens of taxation are unusually heavy. 
In 1838 her public debt, contracted in great part during the American Revolution, and the 
French revolutionary wars, amounted to nearly eig-ht hundred million pounds sterling. Her 
expenditures during the same year were upwards of fifty millions, of which more than 
twenty-nine millions were appropriated to defray the interest and expense of managing the 
public debt ! 

The inhabitants who occupied the British isles at the period when the Romans first landed 
in England, flfty-five years before Christ, belonged partly to the Celtic, and partly to the Gothic 
family— the Celts having very early passed over into England from th« contiguous coasts of 
France ; and the Belgic Goths having at a later period driven the Celts northward and west- 
ward into Scotland,^Vales, and Ireland, and occupied the eastern, lower, and more fertile portions 
of England. The Romans conquered England and the more southern portions of Scotland, 
but appear not to have visited Ireland. After the departure of the Romans, about A. D. 4i)!i, 
the Caledonian Celts overran the country, when the Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, were in- 
vited over to aid their English brethren. The conquest of England by the united Saxons, Jutes, and 
Angles, occupied a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the landing of Hengist. 
In the ninth and tenth centuries occurred the repeated inroads of the Danes, who, at length, 
in iOI7, under their leaders Sweyn and Canute, became masters of the kingdom, which, how- 
ever, they only held till 1041. In the year 10G6 occurred the conquest of England by William 
of Normandy. Through William and the princes of the house of Plantagenet, more than a 
third part of France was placed, by inheritance, marriage, conquest, &c., under the immediate 
jurisdiction and sovereignty of the kings of England ; but during the reign of John, surnamed 
Lackland, the French recovered most of their provinces. In 1169 Henry II. began the conquest 
of Ireland. 

The leading epochs in later English history are, the Civil Wars of the Two Roses, terminated 
by the battle of Bosworth Field in 1484 : the union of the crowns of England and Scotland in 
1C04: the great Civil War in the reign of Charles I., followed by the execution of that monarch 
in 1649: the Restoration in 1660: the Revolution of 1688: the legislative union of England 
and Scotland in 1707 : the accession of the House of Hanover in 1714, (see Hanover p. 482 :) the 
American War, 1776-1784: the war with revolutionary France, 1793-1815: the legislative 
union of Ireland with England and Scot,land, 1799 : the repeal of the Test Act, IS'iB : Catholic 
Emancipat ^>n, 182;> ; and passage of the Reform Act, 183i». 



No. XVI. 




CENTRAL EUROPE, TOGETHER WITH POLAND, HUNGARY, 
AND WESTERN RUSSIA. Map No. XVII, 

Central Europe may be considered as embracing the present numerous German Stales, 
and Switzerland ; including in the former those portions of the Austrian and Prussian erapirca 
•which, previous to the French Revolution, belonged to the German empire. 

The "German Empire" occupies a prominent position in the history of Continental Europe ; 
but it has passed through so many changes in limits, divisions, and government, that the reader 
of historj^ unless he is familiar with them, will often be perplexed by apparent contradictions. 
Thus the emperor of Austria is often mentioned as the emperor of Germany ; and portions of 
Germany are spoken of as belonging to Austria. The following sketch of the German Empire^ 
and the Oermanic Confederation, it is believed will exjjlain these seeming inconsistencies, and 
render German history more intelligible to the general reader. 

The first Carlovingian sovereigns of Germany were hereditary monarchs ; but as early as 887 
the great vassals of the crown deposed their emperor, and elected another sovereign in his 
stead; and from that period down to the dissolution of the German empire in J80C, the em- 
perors of Germany were elected by the most powerful vassals of the empire, some of whom 
were monarchs within their own domains. From 1745 to 1806 the Austrian emperors exercised 
a double sovereignty, — as emperors of Austria, and emperors of Germany also ; but a portion 
of the Austrian dominions were not included in the German empire. 

At the period of the outbreak of the French Revolution, the German empire was divided 
into what were termed Ten Great Circles, each of which had its diet for the transaction of 
local business; but affairs of general importance to the empire at large were treated by the 
imperial diet summoned by the emperor. The Ten Great Circles were, 1st, the Circle of 
Austria ; 2d, The Circle of Burgundy, (including most of the present Belgium, and belong- 
ing to Austria;) 3d, the Circle of Westphalia; 4th, the Circle of the Palatinate; 5th, the 
Circle of the Upper Rhine ; 6th, the Suahian Circle, (including Wirtemberg and Baden ; see 
Suabia, p. 270 ;) 7lh, the Circle of Bavaria ; 8th, the Circle of Franconia, (see Francouia, p. 270 ;) 
9th, the Circle of Lower Saxony, (including the duchies of Magdeburg, Holstein, &c. : the latter 
a part of Denmark;) 10th, the Circle of Upper Saxony, (including Pomerania, Brandenburg, the 
electorate of Saxony, &c.) In addition to these Circles the empire embraced the kingdom of 
Bohemia; the raargraviate of Moravia; the duchy of Silesia, (Austrian and Prussian;) and 
various small territories held directly of the emperor. The Swiss cantons had revolted from the 
empire, and maintained their independence. Thus the German empire, consisting of a vast 
aggregation of States, from large principalities or kingdoms down to free cities and the 
estates of earls or counts, comprised all the countries of Central Europe, and was bounded 
north by northern Denmark and the Baltic; east by Prussian Poland, Galicia, and Hungary; 
south by the Italian Tyrol and Switzerland; and west by France and Holland. The Austrian 
monarch was at the head of this vast empire ; but he had also other States, such as Hungary, 
Galicia, Slavonia, &c., which had no connection with the German empire. Most of Prussia, 
and the southern half of Denmark, were also included in the German dominions. 

Napoleon made important changes in the political geography of the German empire. By the 
treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, (see p. 467,) the frontiers of France were for the first time ex- 
tended to the Rhine ; and the Circle of Burgundy was thus cut off from the German dominions. 
The treaty of Presburg in 1805 was followed by other changes, Austrian Tyrol being given to 
Bavaria, and Hanover to Prussia ; and, in 180G, by the Confederation of the Rhine, (see p. 485,) 
a population of sixteen millions was taken from the Gerjnanic dominion of Austria. Under 
these circumstances, on the Cth of Aug. ISOG, the Austrian emperor solemnly renounced the 
style and title of emperor of Germany. The war with Prussia in 1807 deprived the Prussian 
monarch of nearly one half of his dominions ; and Westphalia was soon after erected into a 
kingdom for Napoleon's brother Jerome. 

The downfall of Napoleon restored Germany to its geographical and political position in 
Europe, but not as an empire acknowledging one supreme head. A confederation of thirty- 
five (afterwards changed to thirty-four) Independent sovereignties, and four free cities, replaced 
the old elective German monarchy. In this Confederation are embraced all the Austrian and 
Prussian territories formerly belonging to the German empire ; also Holstein, (a part of Den- 
mark,) and Luxembourg, (a part of Holland ;)— the emperor of Austria, and the kings of 
Prussia, Denmark, and Holland, becoming, for their respective German territories, parties to 



No. XVII. 



ii: 



:>i 3 ri^ V 'II isi-j,to»iiae 




^IM 



598 

the league. The afifairs of the Confederalion are managed by a diet, in which the representa- 
tive of Austria presides. Until a very recent period each of the German Stales had its own 
custom houses, tariff, and revenue laws, by which tiie internal trade of the coimtry was sub- 
jected to many vexations and ruinous restrictions; but chiefly through the inflvience of Prussia 
this seltish system has been abandoned ; free trade exists between the States ; and a commodity 
(hat has once passed the frojitier of the league may now be conveyed without hinderauce 
throughout its whole extent. 
For notices of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, see pp. 287, 311, and 542. 



THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. Map No. XVIII. 

The United States occupy the middle division of North America, extending from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific Ocean, and embracing an area of about three millions two hundred thou- 
sand square miles. Physical geography would divide this broad belt into three great sections ; 
1st, the Atlantic coast, whose rivers flow into the Atlantic; 2d, the Valley of the Mississippi, 
whose waters find an outlet in the Gulf of Mexico ; and 3d, the Pacific coast, embracing an 
extensive territory went of the Rocky Mountains. The section between the AUeghanies and 
the Atlantic, embracing the thirteen original States, has a soil generally rocky and rough in the 
north-eastern or New England Slates ; of moderate fertility in the Middle States ; and generally 
light and sandy in the Southern Atlantic Slates. The immense Valley of the Mississippi, in- 
cluded between the AUeghanies and the Rocky Mountains, and drained by the Mississippi, 
Missouri, Ohioj- Arkansas, and Red rivers, is one of the largest and finest basins in the work!, 
embracing an area of more than one million square miles — nearly equal to all Europe, wiiii 
tiie exception of the Russian empire. In the eastern and middle sections of this valley the 
soil is generally of very superior quality ; but extensive sandy wastes skirt the eastern base of 
the Rocky Mountains. The country west of the Rocky Mountains exhibits a great variety ni' 
soil. Washington and Oregon territories are divided into three belts or sections, by raountai i 
ranges running nearly parallel with the coast. The eastern section is rocky, broken, and 
barren; the western fertile. Most parts of Utal^and western New Mexico are an extensive 
elevated region of sandy barrens and prairie lands: the northern and eastern sections of Cali- 
fornia are hilly and mountainous : the only portion adapted to agriculture being the southern 
section, and a narrow strip along the coast, forty or fifty miles in width. The vast mineral 
■wealth of California gives that country its chief importance. 

The United States seem destined to become, at no distant day, in population, wealth, and 
power, the greatest nation of the earth. In the year 1850 their population numbered more 
than twenty-three millions; and if it should continue to increase, for a century to come, as il 
has during the past twenty years, at the end of the century it will number one hundred and 
sixty millions, and then be only half as populous as Britain or France. Ilurdiy any limits can 
be assigned to the probable wealth of so extensive and fertile a country, intersected by numer- 
ous canals and navigable lakes and rivers, bound together by its roads of iron, bordering o.i 
two oceans, and commanding the trade of the world. In commerce it is even nov/ the second 
country on the globe, being inferior only to Great Britain: in its agricultural products it has no 
equal ; and in manufactures it has already risen to great respectability. Its revenue, which has 
arisen chiefly from customs on imports, and the sale of public lands, was sufficient in January 
1837, not only to complete the payment of the public debt contracted daring the two wars with 
Great Britain, but also, after retaining five million dollars in the treasury, to distribute more 
than thirty-seven millions among the States. In 1838 the United Slates was entirely free from 
debt, while at the same time Great Britain owed a debt of nearly eight hundred million 
pounds sterling, equal to more than thirty-five hundred millions of dollars ! the annual interest 
on which, at the low English rates, was more than three times the amount of the total annual 
expenditure of Ihe American government. 
Th*, national existence of the United Stales commenced on the 4th of July, 1776, when they 



No. XYIU. 




600 

declared their independence of Great Britain. Tlie seven years' war of the Revolution fol- 
lowed : the definitive treaty of peace was signed September 30th, 1783 : the present Constitu- 
tion was ratified by Congress July 14th, 1788 ; and on the 30th of April, 1789, Washington was 
inaugurated first President of the United States. In 1803, Louisiana, embracing a vast and un- 
defined territory west of the Mississippi, was purchased from France for fifteen millions of dol- 
lars; and in 1821 Florida was ceded to the United States by Spain. On the 4th of June, 1812, 
the American Congress declared war against Great Britain: peace was concluded at Ghent, 
Dec 14th, 1814. In the year 1845 the Republic of Texas was annexed to the United States. 
In April 1846 a war with Mexico began : California was conquered by the Americans during 
the summer of the same year ; on the 27th of March, 1847, Vera Cruz capitulated ; and on 
the 14th of September the American army entered the city of Mexico. In February, 1848, a 
treaty was concluded with Mexico, by which the United States obtained a large increase of ter- 
ritory, embracing the present New Mexico, Utah, and California. 



INDEX 



THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES. 



PAOE 

Acaruania 96 

Achiiia 46 

Ac'tium 186 

Acre 282 

Adriauople 228 

^geanSea 31 

yEgina 74 

iE'gos Pot'amos 86 

^tolia 108 

^t'na 118 

^Wguiaiis i:{9 

Agrigen'tum 116 

Agiiicourl 303 

Aix 172 

Aix-lachapelle 381 

Alexandria 99 

Alba 126 

•Alia, r 143 

Mdni 213 

.llevian'ni 216 

Alps 229 

Aleppo 249 

Mbigenses 332 

Algiers 335 

Almanza 404 

Alsace 406 

Albnera 493 

Amvionites 41 

Amphis'sa 96 

Amiens 279 

Amboise 342 

Amsterdam 381 

Antioch 222 

Andalusia 232 

Jingles 232 

Angora 311 

Anjou 305 

Antwerp 345 

./Ipollo 25 

Apollonia 109 

Aquitaine 300 

Aragon 317 

.^rchimides 159 

Ar'dea 133 

Arb61a 100 

Arabia 39 

Arcadia 46 

Ar'gos 28 

Ar'golis 28 

Ar'gives 48 

. Irgonautic expedition 33 

Ar'nus, r 150 

.'irsac'tdcc 249 

Arras 378 

Arcole 466 

Arad 557 

Assyria J7 



PAGE 

Asia Minor 28 

Asia 229 

Ascalon 285 

Aspern 491 

Atlic'i 29 

Athens 47, 566 

Attains 169 

Atlantis 320 

Athos, mt 74 

Austria 313 

Augsburg 334 

Austerlitz 485 

Auerstadt 319 

Azores 388 

Azof 486 



B 



Babylon 

Bacchus 

Balearic Isles. 

Baalbec 

Bagdad 

Bavaria 

Bannockburn. 

Bayonne 

Barcelona 

Bahamas 

Baden 

Baylen 

Badajoz 

Biiutzeu 

Barbary 

Balkan, mts . . 

Bauat 

Bartfeld 

Bethoron 

Beachy Head. 

Bender 

Berlin 

Bellisle 

Beresina 

Bithyn'ia 



Biscay 

Blackheath 

Blenheim 

Bceotia 

Bos'porus 219, 

Boz'rah 

Bouillon 

Bordeaux 

Bosworth 

Bohemia 

Bourbon 

Boulogne 

Bombay 

Borodino.... > 



18 

26 

152 

248 



301 
404 
442 
483 
489 
493 
498 
509 
522 
551 
556 
114 
384 
413 
426 
432 
497 
281 
379 
462 
302 
402 
30 
596 
248 
280 
300 
307 
313 
327 
336 
395 
495 



^ . PAGE 

Bologna 544 

Brahmins 48 

Brundusium 185 

Bretigny 300 

Brest 301 

Brandenburg 3i;i 

Brunswick >356 

Breda 373 

Brabant 380 

Bragauza *. . 392 

Bruges 404 

Brazil 4g8 

Bristol 53) 

Busiris 222 

Bjirgundians 230 

Burgundy, Trausjuraue... 271 

Burgundy (Circle of) 596 

Burgundy, Upper 379 

Busentinus 232 

Buenos Ayres 485 

Burgos...' 490 

Busaco 492 

Bug, r 529 

Bukowina 553 

Buda 554 

Byzantium 218, 576 



Cappadocia 98 

Cat'ana 119 

Cadmus 30 

Canaanites 41 

Capua 147 

Caudine Forks 147 

Catalonia 258 

Can'nai 158 

CapreaB 191 

Caledonia 199 

Cadesiah 249 

Cambray 254 

Ctesarea 282 

Calais 299 

Calmar 308 

Castile 317 

Canaries 319 

Cape Verd Isles 319 

Carlowitz 551 

Calcutta 395 

Cadiz 402 

Cassandra 518 

Cairo 470 

Campo Forraio 467 

Cape Breton 422 

Carribbee Isles 442 

Ceres 26 

Censors 142 

Celtibcrians 166 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



PAGE 

Cerisoles 336 

Ceylon 394 

Chaeronea 97 

Chalons 233 

China 286 

Cherbourg 301 

Chatham 372 

Cholet 459 

Chateau Gonthier 459 

Cimonian treaty 81 

Cilicia 98 

Cisalpine Gaul 143 

Cimbri HI 

Cintra 489 

Ciudad Rodrigo 492 

Clazom'ense 89 

Clusium 136 

Clyp'ea 154 

Clastid'ium 156 

Clermont 280 

Corinth 51 

Corinthian Isth 46 

Corcy'ra 82 

Coron6a 89 

CollAtia 133 

Consuls 135 

Corioli 139 

Corsica 152 

Copts 221 

Cologne 254 

Cordova 269 

Constance 331 

Copenhagen 408 

Courland 410 

Coblenlz 451 

Corunna 490 

Comorn 553 

Crete 34 

Crasus, 56 

Cressy 299 

Cracow 410 

Croatia 542 

Croustadt 553 

Ctesiphon 203 

Cumae 115 

CuUoden 422 

Cuba 432 

Culm 498 

Cyclopes 22 

Cyclopean structures 28 

CjTenaica 70 

Cyprus 80 

Cys'icus 

Cyc lades 522 



D 

Damascus 62 

Danube, r 171 

Dacia 200 

Dalmatia ►. 208 

Damietta 286 

Dauphin 304 

Dauphiny 341 

Ihintzic 486 

Delphi 47 

Denmark 308 

Delhi 350 

Desna, r 412 

Dettingen 4-20 

Dennewitz 499 

Derby 531 

Debrecztn 553 



PAGE 

Diana 26 i 

Dictator 137 

Dnieper, r 309 

Doris 45 

Don, r 71 

DorilsD'um 281 

Dominica 438 

Dogger Bank 441 

Dreux 341 

Dresden 359 

Druids 195 

Dunbar 295 

Durham 299 

Dublin 307 

Dunkirk ». 372 

Dwina, r 389 

Dyrrach'ium 180 

E 

Ebro 489 

Eckmuhl 491 

Edinburgh 421 

Edom 63 

Edghill 364 

Egypt 13 

Egyp^i PQP- of 469 

Egesta 119 

E'lis 50 

Elateia 96 

Elbe, r 257 

Elba 500 

Emes'sa 248 

Emir 310 

Engeu 477 

Epirus 44 

Eph'esus 57 

Eperies 553 

Eretria 85 

Ethiopia 37 

Etrurians 125 

Euphrates 13 

Euxine 34 

Euboe'a 56 

Eylau 486 

F 

Fates 26 

Falkirk 295 

Ferrara 544 

Finland 407 

Florence 230 

Flanders 378 

Fonlenoy 421 

Forum, Roman 144 

Franks 216 

Franconia 270 

Franche Corate 379 

Frankfort 419 

Frcjus 473 

Frederickshall 415 

Friuli 268 

Friedland 487 

Fronde 377 

Furies 24 

G 

Ganges 37 

Gath 60 

Gaul 99 

Gaza l-"*" 



PAOK 

Gascony 298 

Galicla 540 

Gaeta 547 

Gedrosia 101 

Gela 115 

Germania 200 

Oermanic Confed 539 

German States 596 

Geneva 258 

Genoa 315 

Georgia 268 

Ghent 344 

OhibeUities 269 

Giants 24 

Gilgal 59 

Gilboa 60 

Gibraltar 403 

Gloucester 301 

Goshen 16 

Gorgons 27 

Goths 213 

Goa 349 

Gottingen 356 

Goodwin sands 368 

Graces 26 

Granicus 98 

Gracchi 170 

Granada 317 

Gravelines 379 

Grenada 439 

Granville 460 

Gross-Beren 499 

Guadalete 251 

Guadalquiver 251 

Guinea.... .320 

Guienne 34 1 

Guadaloupe 432 

Guillotine 456 





'j7 




98 


Hastings .. .... 


290 


Halidon Hill 


. . 299 


Havre . 


339 




482 


Hanau 


539 


Ham 


5(50 




. . .. 14 


Hebe 


2i; 


Helen 


36 


Hebron 


. . 60 


Hellespont 

Hermean, pr 

Herculaneum 

Hcr'uli 


79 

154 

200 

334 


Hesse Cassel 

Heidelburg 

Hermanstadt 


539 

539 

553 

5.56 




22 


Hi in 'era 


117 


Himera, r 

Hindostaii 


120 

253 

35 


Holland 

Hotel des Invalides.. 
Huchkirchen 

HmiHiirnQ . . 


313, 592 

377 

429 

433 




479 




232 


Hudson's Bay, ter... 


400 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



m 



PAGE 

Hungary., 542 

Hyphasis, r l"l 



Ib6rus, r. 



157 

Iceland 320 

Iceni 1^5 

Iltyia f 

Illyrians ^^ 

Irabrus ^ 

Ingria.... 4]{ 

Innapruck J^ji; 



India 



100 



Indus, r... ?9 



Ipsamboul 

ipj^--;;;;;;;;;;;:;::; 'oe 

Irefand.! .'.'.".!.'.'.' '''.'••••• 292 

Issus «° 

Ispahan f?^ 

Islamism **iV 



PAGE 

Lib'anua, mU 282 

Lithuania f]^~ 

Lisbon ^20 

Lisle 406 

Livonia 407 

Lissa 427 

Liegnitz 431 

Ligny ^^ 

Locrians ^* 

Lombardy ~i^ 



Loire, r 



257 



Louisburg 422 



Lodi. 



466 



Ithome. 
Italv... 



Jabesh Gilead'. . . . 
Janus, Temp. of. 

Java 

Jerusalem 

Jemappea 

Jena. 



164 
455 

486 



Lodoraeria 540 

Lusitanians 16b 

Lucan 1^4 

Luxemburg ^j^ 

Lusatia ^.j. 

Lutter 256 

Lubec 257 

Lutzen ^2„ 

Lmieville 4/9 

Lucca 544 

ro'iv.v.v.::;:::;::::::^ 



Josephus 14 



Jordan. 

Joppa 

Jupiter 

Juno 

Jupiter Am. 
Judaism 



Temp of. 



M 



Mars 



25 



Marathon 75 

Mantin6a ^ 

Maccabees \\^ 

Malta 152 

Marseilles 157 

Magnesia 



161 



Kamarlna 11^ 

Kasbgar ^ 

Katsbach 499 

Kalamatia g^/ 

Khorassan ^^/ 

Killiecrankie ^^ 

Kiev 287 

Kotzim 38° 

Kolin 426 

Krasnoi *«' 

Kurdistan 222 



Mauritania 1^1 

M^rius 174 

Maesia *"y 

Magian idolatry ^5 

Madgeburg 358 

Marston Moor ^^ 

Madagascar ^"f 

Madras ^95 

Madrid 404 

Malplaquet • 405 

Manilla 
Martinique. 



432 
432 



Lacedaemon 35 

Laconia 48 

Lavinium l^o 

L&tium 126 

Laurentines ^ 

Lancaster *^a 

La Hogue •^\ 

Laybach ^]^ 

Lesbos... 

Lemnos 

tLeuctra 

^Levant 

lieon 

lieipaic 

tabya 



Marseilles Hymn 455 

Mans 460 

Mantua 466 

Malta 469 

Marengo 478 

Mahrattas 485 

Manchester 509 

Memphis 14 

Mercury *5 

Messenia 51 

Media "9 

Meg'ara °^ 

Melos 83 

Mess&na 1^5 

Metaurus ]^ 

Mediol&num 217 

Mecca •••• 247 

Medina 247 

Mer'ida. 252 



PAOB 

Mons Sacer 138 

Montserrat ^6 

Moscow 287 

Moldavia 434 

Moravia 3j3 

Morgarten 313 

Morea 316 

Moluccas 393 

Mons 403 

Montenotte 465 

Mount Tabor. 472 

Moeskirch 477 

Muses 26 

Munda 182 

Mussulman 247 

Munster 392 

Munich 420 

Mythology *? 

Mycale 80 

Mysore 443 

N 

Naupactus 46 

Naxos 115 

Navarre 317 

Nantes 34* 

Naseby 3|5 

Namur ^5? 

Narva 4^ 

Nazareth f72 

Navarino 517 

Napoli di Rom 51o 

Naples, Kingdom of. 546 

JVeptune 2| 

Neap'olis 115 

Neustria 272 

Newbury 364 

New Netherlands. 373 

Nerwinden 385 

Newfoundland 406 

Neva, r 411 

Nile 16 

Nineveh 1| 

Nice 281 

Nice 336 

Nimeguen ^7^ 

Niemen, r ^7 

JSTormans *o-- 

Normandy 272 

Novogorod 309 

Nottingham 3^ 

Numidia 15° 

Numantia 1^ 

Nuremberg 359 

J^ymphs f4 

■K^rataA 4l0 



Minos 34 

Midianites 41 

Miletus 57 

Minden 430 

Millessimo 465 



Nystad . 



Moabites . 



Olmutz 5^ 

Olympius ^ 

Olynthus »" 

Onod 556 

Oporto ^ 

Ormus 348 

Orleans ^01 

Orange •*2;» 

Ostracism ^ 

Ostia.... •• 1« 

Ofltrolenka ^ 

Oudenarde *"* 



IV 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



P 

PAGE 

Palestine 40, 57i 

Pamisua 52 

Paros T6 

Pannonia 105 

Panor'mus 117 

Parthia 179 

Palmyra 216 

Paris 255 

Papal power 256 

Papal States 544 

Pavia 258 

Pampeluna 258 

Passau :i37 

Palatinate 384 

Parma 544 

Peneus, r 44 

Persia 56 

Persian Hist 572, 249 

Persian Gulf 101 

Per'gamus 162 

Pelusium 250 

Pesth 549 

Peterwardein 551 

Philistines 41 

Phocis 91 

Phrygia 103 

Pharsalia 180 

Pharos 181 

Philippi 185 

Pindus, mts 44 

Picts 227 

Pisa 319 

Piedmont 421 

Pluto 24 

Platae'a 75 

Placentia 280 

Plantagenet 291 

Potidae'a 82 

Po,r 158 

Pontus 173 

Pomp6ii 200 

PoUentia 229 

Poictiers 252 

Poles 311 

Portugal 318 

Pomerania 358 

Podolia 390 

Pondicherry 395 

PrcB'tor 156 

Prcetorian Guards 192 

Provence 27J 

Prague 355 

Pruth 414 

Pragmatic Sanction 419 

Preston Pans 421 

Punic 152 

Pultusk 410 

Pultowa 412 

Presburg 555 

Pyramids 16 

Pydna 110 

Pyrenees 252 

a 

Quatre Bras 501 

B 

Rabbah 62 

Kaab 558 

Raven'na 229 

Ramillies 403 



PAGE 

Radstadt 406 

Raudian plain 173 

Reynosa 490 

Rhine, r 179 

Rhone, r 172 

Rhodes 250 

Rheims 272 

Richmond 306 

Riga 407 

Rio Janeiro 488 

Roncesvalles 258 

Roum 281 

Rochelle 357 

Roussillon 379 

Rossback 426 

Rome 582 

Rubicon, r 150 

Russia 287 

Riituli 314 

Ryswick 365 

S 

Satur7i 24 

Samothrace 34 

Sardis 57 

Samaria 64 

Sabine, ter 128, 578 

Samnites 147, 578 

Sardinia 152 

Sagimtum 156 

Sarmatia 2)9 

Saxons 224 

Saracen 248 

Sassanidw 249 

Saragossa 258 

Saxony 270 

Samarcand 310 

Savoy 355 

Salonica 519 

Salona 520 

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 527 

Saumur 459 

Savenay 460 

Salamanca 493 

Sardinia, kingdom of 515 

Scythia 71 

Scone 295 

Scio 518 

Selinus 119 

Sempach 315 

Serbs 550 

Seringapatam 443 

Sicyon 52 

Sidon 61 

Sicily 84 

Sileucia 102 

Sirmium 218 

Sileucidm 249 

Silesia 313 

Slavonia 390 

Slavojiians 550 

Sleswick 407 

Smolensko 412 

Solway Frith 204 

Soissons -. 255 

Sorbonne 333 

Spain 156 

Spires 334 

Spliigen 479 

Strabo Ill 

Stirling 295 

Stralsund 356 

Strasburg 385 



PAGE 

Stockholm 415 

St. Albans 305 

St. Just 337 

St. Germain 342 

St. Quentin 339 

St. Petersburg.' 389 

St. Christophers 406 

St. Lucia 438 

St. Vincents 438 

St. Eustatia 439 

St. Cloud 473 

St. Bernard 477 

St. Domingo 481 

St. Helena 50j 

Suevi 230 

Suabia 270 

Surinam 393 

Sussex 290 

Switzerland 269 

Syria 62 

Syracuse 84 

Syb'aris 116 

Szegedin 554 

T 

Tan'agra 82 

Taren'tum lie 

Tarquin'ii 131 

Tarsus 185 

Tegyra 91 

Teu'tones 171 

Terouane 254 

Tewkesbury 306 

Teutonic Knights 312 

Tessino 515 

Tell, Wm 314 

Tenedos 519 

Temeswar 554 

Thebes in Egypt 14 

Thebes in Gr 30 

Thessaly 31 

Theseus 33 

Theban War 33 

Thrace 71 

ThermopylfB 77 

Thracian Cher 96 

Thera 121 

Thapsus .^ 182 

Thuringia 270 

Theiss, r 548 

Titans 22 

Tiber, r 125 

Tibur 218 

Ticinus 158 

Tilsit 487 

Tours 253 

Toumay 254 

Toulon 404 

Torgou 431 

Tobago 441 

Torfou 459 

Torres Vedras 492 

Tokay 556 

Troy 35 

Trez6ne 79 

Tribunes 138 

Tr6bia 158 

Trasim6nus 158 

Trajan's col 203 

Tripoli in Af. 250 

Tripoli in A 282 

Transylvania 390 

Trafalgar 484 



GEOGRAPHICAL INDEX. 



PAGE 

Troppau 509 

Trieste 516 

Tripolitza 517 

Tuscan Sea 150 

Tunis 151 

Turin 157 

Tuscany 231 

Tudela 490 

Tyre 61 

Tyne,r 204 

Tyrol 313 

U 

Ukraine 390 

Ulm V. . . . 484 

Umbria 202, 578 

Wranus 22 

Utica 159 

Utrecht 344 

V 

Valencia 116 

Vandals 219 



PAGE 

Valenciennes 378 

Venus 24 

Vesta 26 

Veti 142 

Venetians 145 

Vesuvius 199 

Verona 215 

Venice 233 

VersaiUes 380 

Vendean Leaders 460 

Viriathus 166 

Vienna 386 

Vigo Bay 402 

ffimiera 489 

rVittoria 494 

Volscians 137 

Volga,r 389 

Volhynia. 528 

Vulcan 25 



w 

Wales 294 

Warsaw 410 

Wagram 491 



PASS 

Waterloo 501 

Wavre 501 

Wallachs 553 

Warwick 306 

Weser, r 257 

Westphalia 360, 487 

Wickliffe 331 

Wittemberg 332 

Windsor 375 

Wihia 495 

Widdin 558 

Worms 314 

Wolsey 330 

Y 

Yermouk 249 

York 209 

z 

Zama 160 

Zara 886 

Zenta 390 

Zomdorf 428 



9^9^/-/ / 



c 



A' 






